tomgillespie2002 Following the gruesome gore-fests of Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979) and City of the Living Dead (1980), director Lucio Fulci toned down the violence and adapted the short story of the same name by Edgar Allen Poe. The film, that bares little resemblance to Poe's original story, has Inspector Gorley (David Warbeck) travel to a rural English village to investigate a string of strange deaths and occurrences. Also arriving is photography student Jill (Mimsy Farmer), who finds a strange recording device in a graveyard that traces back to the eccentric Professor Robert Miles (Patrick Magee, the vengeful assault victim from A Clockwork Orange (1971)). Miles is trying to contact the dead, but it is his strange black cat that seems to be committing the murders, and seems to be as murderous towards its owner than it is to its selected victims.This is a huge change of tone from what I've experienced previously from the Italian 'Godfather of Gore' (surely that title belongs to H.G. Lewis?), and shares more in common with Hammer's horror output and the various Roger Corman adaptations of Poe's work. Yet although the tone makes for a refreshing change, this is still a plodding and silly film, and is far from the director's best work. I've already voiced my puzzlement at how a cat can kill a human in my review of The Corpse Grinders (1971), and the same happens here. A man gets attacked in the street repeatedly by a lunging cat, and I couldn't help but shout abuse at the screen as he flailed about pathetically.The film is beautifully shot though, and if one thing can be said about Fulci, is that he knows how to shoot a smoky graveyard. His best works The Beyond (1981) and City of the Living Dead involved scenes of beautiful sepia and eerie widescreen shots of various spooky locations, and The Black Cat is no different. The early scene involving Miles attempting to communicate to the dead in a graveyard has a panning shot so beautiful that it almost cemented an extra star onto my rating. But the sheer silliness and tedium of the rest of the film brought me back to reality.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

morrison-dylan-fan Awaiting to watch the main feature to the most recent DVD the I have picked up from Shameless,)I watched the pre-film trailers. Amongest the previews for the other Giallo's,the clips for this film have always stayed in my head,mostly due to the plot of the film looking so over the top.recently I have really been starting to "click" with the work of Italian director Lucio Fulci,and since this film looked like a good opportunity to see Fulci in a full flight of fantasy mode,I decide that it was time to pay a visit to Fulci's amazing pet.The plot:Looking around old ruins in a small English village,photography Jill Trevers treads on a out of place mini microphone,which looks to have been carelessly left behind.Meanwhile,a young couple decide to spend quality time with each other,by going for a day of passion in a deserted boat docking bay.Shortly after things have begun to heat up for them,the electricity suddenly goes out.Wanting to get the power back on,the boyfriend goes to pick up the door key that he had left by the side.Checking all around them,the couple make a horrifying discovery,that someone (or something) has somehow stolen the key,and has set the heating temperature of the room,to make the couple be baked to death.Relaxing in a pub,Jill hears a local tell a wild tale about a psychic who is communicating with the dead and controlling one very weird black cat.Paying a visit to local psychic Prof. Robert Miles,Trevers starts to get hypnotised by Miles talking to her about the amazing psychic powers which he posses to talk to the dead.Suddenly,the cat jumps out from nowhere,and slashes the hands of Miles.Pushing for an answer,Jill is eventually told that the reason the cat went for Robert,is due to it being a "special cat" that wants to kill him.Whilst trying to digest what she has seen,Trevers is met by Scotland Yard inspector Gorley,(who has arrived in the village to investigate a strange series of gruesome murders)who requests Trevers to come along with him to the murder scene,so that he is able to gather evidence of the killings with her photos.Arriving to the latest murder scene,Jill is sicken to discover that the latest victim is the man who had told her the "wild tale" about Miles and his black cat.As Trevers finishes taking the photos,she horrifyingly notices that the victims hands are covered with slashes,which almost look to have been done by a cat.. View on the film:Although some of the trademarks of Gothic Horror have been pushed to the side,replaced by some modern day things, (such as cars,and electricity) and no sign of any huge castles.director Lucio Fulci still gives this Giallo a tremendous Gothic foundation,with the final half an hour of this fantastic film having a strong,spooky chill,as Prof Robert Miles (played by a wonderfully nasty Patrick Magee) tries to stop Jill Trevers (played with the right mix of fear and daring by Mimsy Farmer)from getting any closer to discovering the truth about Miles's "pet" cat.Checking the clips of the film,my main initial,uncertainty about the film was not being completely confident that the screenplay would be able to keep this film away from falling into a comedy pit,instead of being a thrilling Gothic Giallo.Almost from the films opening vicious killing,I began to suspect that my fears would be proved wrong,mostly thanks to Fulci and Biagio Proietti keeping the serial killer cat story moving at a constant pace,and whilst this does allow for some of the flaws in the story to become much easier to see, (such as the ending of the film,which is an exact copy of Fulci's own Seven Notes In Nero!)the positives strongly outweigh the negatives,thanks to the film having a fantastic mix of Gothic Horror (such as Robert trying to destroy the cat,and the brilliantly atmospheric scenes of Robert talking to the dead) and Giallo (Fulci's excellent,stylish murders of the black cat,and the tense, increased suspicions of Trevers and Gorley that Miles is more than just an innocent spectator in his connection with the brutal murders)Having just become a fan of Lucio Fulci, (thanks to his highly under rated Giallo Seven Notes In Nero) I was thrilled to see that with the brilliant flight of fantasy Gothic Giallo screenplay as support,Fulci delivered on his directing, well beyond any of my expectations.due to Lucio getting rid of the "three shoot" rule, (a wide,medium and close-up shot)and instead making "simple" scenes extremely eye- catching with the camera doing some beautifully styli zed long shoots (one of my favourite moments in the film being the boyfriend of the soon-to-be murdered couple locking the door to the docking bay generator,with Fulci filming the scene by showing things heating up between the couple,and then continuing the shot by tracking the boyfriend locking the door,and then puling out,to have the camera return to is original spot-all in one shot!)When Lucio decides to show some moments in the film from the cats POV,I was left a little bit disappointed the he had not decided to film the cats pov's in a stylish way with a black and white film stock,although with Fulci brilliantly making it seem plausible that one aggressive murdering cat could put an entire village in fear ,I felt at the end of this fantastic Gothic Giallo,that here is a very impressive director,who can turn any absurd sounding story,into a full on gripping film,whose flight of fantasy are handled by a stunningly skilled hand.

Woodyanders A disturbing series of shocking fatal "accidents" occur in a sleepy small English village. Stalwart Scotland Yard Inspector Gorley (solid David Warbeck) and snoopy photographer Jill Trevers (the always charming and lovely Mimsy Farmer) investigate the rash of grisly deaths. The most probable suspect turns out to be haughty medium Professor Robert Miles (marvelously played by the great Patrick Magee), a sour outcast who's been trying to communicate with the recently deceased. Director Lucio Fulci, very loosely adapting Edgar Allen Poe's classic short story, ably creates his trademark potently brooding ooga-booga gloom-doom creepy Gothic atmosphere and stages the expected brutal murder set pieces with his customary lip-smacking sadistic flair. Sergio Salvati's sumptuously slick and sparkling cinematography makes exquisitely fluid use of smoothly gliding tracking shots. Pino Donaggio's beautifully chilling and eerie score further adds to the overall spooky tone. Fulci regular Al Cliver pops up as a friendly local police sergeant and poor Dagmar Lassander suffers a memorably fiery demise. The titular cunning, deadly and lethal feline qualifies as one genuinely scary and nasty piece of ferocious work. One of Fulci's most unjustly neglected and underrated fright features.

sol1218 **SPOILERS** Creepy and atmospheric little horror flick, based on the writings of Edger Alan Poe, about a mysterious black cat who at first is being controlled by this whacked out professor as well as self-style medium Robert Miles to do his dirty work. Later, after Miles kills it the feline comes back from the dead to exact vengeance on him by having Miles brought to justice from what he did.As the movie starts, with the credits are rolling down the screen, we see this black cat distract a man, Foreman, behind the wheel of his car as he loses control and crashes killing himself. Miles who's the cat's master is later seen in his home playing tapes of sounds that he recorded in the local cemetery trying to contact Neil, for all we know Neil is his dead son, and we hear a number of strange and eerie sounds on the tape that sound like their from a language other then English, they sound like Greek to me.Young America photographer Jill Trevers, photographing the ancient Roman and British ruins, in and around town is at the cemetery and sees one of the crypts broken into and inside finds a recording device. That evening at the local bar in town Jill hears form a number of patrons about this nut and weirdo Prof. Miles who's known to try to communicate with the dead and hangs around at the cemetery trying to get in touch with them. Going to see Miles by using the excuse of giving him back his lost recording device Jill notices his "pet" back cat who's anything but cuddly to him but who violently attacks Miles in Jill's presence scratching him in his hand. Jill later starts to suspect that it was Miles black cat who was responsible for the death of one of the towns well known heavy drinkers, Furgerson while photographing his body for the police department after he's found dead, from a fall off a gangplank and on to a spiked fence. Jill noticed that Furgersn's hand was terribly scratched just like Miles was by his cat.We earlier saw a young couple, Stan & Maureen, lock themselves into a storehouse by the docks. As their making out the lights go out and they finds themselves locked in with the key to the door strangely missing. At first you have no idea to just what the couple have to do with the movie but later it turns out that Maureen's mother Mrs. Grayson once had an affair with Miles and broke it off, was this was Miles' way of getting even with her! How did Miles do it? Did Miles have his black cat sneak into the storehouse grab to key, thus locking them in, and then turn off the air-conditioner; causing the two lovebirds to suffocate to death?Miles eventually get's even with Mrs. Grayson, for turning down his advances, by having his cat cause her apartment house to be set on fire by knocking over a lit kerosene lamp into the fire place and then having her, totally engulfed in flames, jump to her death from the third floor window. Miles now confidently feeling that he achieved all his goals in getting even with those in town who rubbed him the wrong way gives the back cat a meal spiked with a strong sedative knocking it out. Taking the unconscious cat, stuffed in a sack, outside in the woods Miloes brutally hangs it. Miles should have known that the black cat had nine, not one, lives and that it would soon come back to get even with him for what he did to it with a wild and ferocious fury that even he,it's former master, couldn't even in his wildest dreams imagine or comprehend.Hard to find but very effective killer cat movie with Patrick McGee in his last movie role playing the crazed Professor Robert Miles who together with Mimsy Farmer, as the American photographer Jill Trevers, have some of the most extreme and mind-boggling close ups ever put on film. The black cat itself is also very scary as it moves towards and stalks it's victims and you forget for a while that it's really a common house cat.You look at the killer feline as if it were an instrument of death and terror conjure up by the Devil himself straight out of hell. The movie "Black Cat" has a very hypnotic feel to it, maybe because of it's many unusual and almost microscopic closeups, and the ending is anything but a letdown, like you would expect from a movie like it. Miles gets just what he had coming to him with the cat, as well as the local police, having him face ultimate justice for the crimes that he committed.