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THE BLACK CAT (1981)
SHAMELESS DVD (region 2)
d. Lucio Fulci; pr. Giulio Sbarigia; scr. Lucio Fulci, Biagio Proietti; stry. Edgar Allan Poe; ph. Sergio Salvati; ed. Vincenzo Tomassi; m. Pino Donaggio; prod d. Franco Calabrese; cast. David Warbeck, Patrick Magee, Mimsy Farmer, Dagmar Lassander, Al Cliver (92 mins)
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Spaghetti Nightmare Maestro takes on Edgar Allan Poe

Lucio Fulci is a name that immediately resonates with the devout gorehound.  A genre toiler in Italian cinema, Fulci drifted into lurid thrillers (known as “giallos”) and horror movies in the mid 1970s. 

Seizing upon the popularity of George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead in Italy, Fulci made the fan-favourite Zombie Flesh Eaters.  The enormous success of that movie enabled Fulci to throw himself with abandon into the horror genre, directing such stylish works as The Beyond, House by the Cemetery, City of the Living Dead and The New York Ripper.  These films in particular were considered the core best of Fulci’s work in the early 1980s.  Although his compatriot Dario Argento may have garnered critical acclaim, Fulci remained a fan favourite, his films gradually receiving such attention that after his death he was mentioned in the same league as Argento, one of the finest of the “spaghetti nightmare” stylists as the horror and exploitation directors in Italian cinema of the 1970s and 1980s were referred.

The Black Cat is a minor Fulci film, sandwiched in between his more ground-breaking horrors.  In interviews Fulci admitted that he did not especially care for the movie and did it merely to keep active during his most prolific period.

Indeed, it remains one of his least known and seldom seen works, reason enough to examine it afresh.  In the film, Patrick Magee (best known as the wheelchair-ridden writer who wreaks a horrible revenge on Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange) plays a psychic medium who lingers around graveyards hoping to record the voices of the dead.  In private he listens to his tapes and is immersed in a seemingly hallucinatory trance.  A policeman (David Warbeck) arrives to investigate a series of accidents / murders which seem related to a prowling black cat, Magee’s pet and personal nemesis.  Soon Magee feels that he has a psychic link with the animal and thus to the apparent murders.  A photographer (Mimsy Farmer) also feels the cat may somehow be involved.  Although the film’s title suggests an adaptation of the classic short story by Edgar Allen Poe, only in the latter stages does Fulci attempt to deal with the implications and situations of Poe.  Indeed, until then The Black Cat alternates prowling cat camera point of view shots with a seemingly endless exchange of close-ups of eyes, both Magee’s and the cat’s; as if there is some unseen psychic bond between them. 

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Misanthropy & Sadean Pathological Perversion

Of Fulci’s peak-period films, The Black Cat is the most leisurely paced.  However, in that it is true to the setting – a lazy English countryside village. 

Indeed Fulci takes much time to depict the daily rhythms and activities of the villagers and the attention to behavioural detail suggests a more reflective and studied than passionate Fulci this time out.  Successive murders involving the cat are effective, Fulci offering the requisite tits ‘n ass when needed and his point of view stalking camera neatly suggests a feline menace.  However, it often seems like a mechanical chore and bogs down in slowly played dialogue scenes, though Fulci’s misanthropic side is revealed in the attention to stalked and suffering characters within the murderous set-pieces.  Scenes of Magee prowling the graveyard are effective as Fulci investigates the field of psychic research and human-animal telepathy – a theme that director George Romero would explore some years later in Monkey Shines.  With looming camera movement and alternating close-ups, The Black Cat has style to burn but lacks the visceral kick that the Italian maestro brought to his best films.

The Black Cat has much of interest though – as an attempt to bring his concern for supernatural horror and grisly violence into an English setting perhaps more akin to readers of Agatha Christie mysteries (eg. The Mirror Crack'd) than knock-down Italian gore-fests – but it is lethargically paced, trying for a characterization of a man driven by an inner megalomania that becomes a homicidal need to dominate and punish: a need that he cannot act on personally but which is taken upon by his pet feline.  The rivalry between Magee and the cat seems comical in its earnestness however and The Black Cat only fitfully engages as a mood piece, though is effectively scored by genre veteran Pino Donaggio.  Magee’s overacting is hilarious and gives the film a slightly hysterical overtone but it is the stylish set-pieces of deaths involving the cat which give the film its true novelty and it is in some of these scenes that Fulci reveals the sense of stylish terror and suspense that has earned him a deserved reputation as one of the best directors ever to work within the horror genre. 

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One for the Devout Fans Only: Poe-nography

With a good cone or two, one can excuse Fulci’s lack of interest in the narrative, the almost operatic overacting and go along with his stylish sense of shock for an offbeat exercise in horror. 

Although having intense moments, The Black Cat lacks the raw power of Fulci’s best and seems stagey and theatrical in comparison.  It remains a slick technical exercise, rooted in human as much as supernatural menace.  A must-see for Fulci completists, for others it is an intriguing look at the stylistics brought to horror by Italian filmmakers but is not one of its most influential offerings.  The widescreen transfer on this Shameless DVD release, however, is ideal viewing.  On its original release the film went straight to video outside of Italy and was seen only in pan and scan versions.  On home video, Fulci’s close-ups of rival eyes became pointless looks at the bridges of noses and the film was flat and uninspired: now in widescreen and seen afresh, although perhaps a lesser work, his style still carries the film over its less involving moments. 

The Shameless UK DVD though uncut, was released as part of a retrospective of Italian giallo works, including The New York Ripper (heavily cut, unlike - oddly enough - the Australian re-release) and Manhattan Baby from director Fulci: though good quality, they are all subject to existing and additional BBFC censorship and, when in modified format, valuable only as comparisons to the uncut versions found on most US releases through such distributors as Anchor Bay and Blue Underground.

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USA DVD PURCHASE INFORMATION: The Black Cat
UK DVD PURCHASE INFORMATION: Black Cat [1981] [DVD]
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