doctorsmoothlove I have also significantly reduced the amount of money I spend on movie tickets. Now I only see films I think will be good (like Drive) and have shifted to purchasing blu-rays. This has spoiled me into expecting great picture and sound quality which is infrequent in multiplexes. I don't want to be too out of touch, so I will rent some quotidian movies, probably on Saturday, while I invest in better films. Here is an obscure gialli The Crimes of the Black Cat.Sergio Pastore's only giallo is a fun exercise for genre adherents. Play a game of identifying steals from better directors' better movies. Even for a genre film, Crimes of the Black Cat presents very little to justify its existence. A bunch of fashion models start to be killed off by an unknown assailant a la Blood and Black Lace. A blind hero tries to determine who the killer might be, and the only his lack of glasses differentiate him from his counterpart in The Cat o'Nine Tails. The plagiarism doesn't stop! There is even a shot of someone moving through a room of mannequins that is filmed from the same above canted angle as in Hatchet for the Honeymoon. Pastore was either an opportunist, hired help, or a hack with this film, mistaking his idols' manipulations of mise-en- as reasons for their successes. Bava and Argento arbitrarily added these characteristics to their movies, either out of intrigue into their underlying phenomena or artistry.Pastore has does have some imagination, and his derivative movie may have actually been an inspiration for Lucio Fulci's The Black Cat which uses features more feline murder. This killer surprises his victims with his tabby who poisons them with curare claws. It reads better than it watches. Every time this happens the victim gets a quick scratch and dies. Admittedly, it's hard to imagine a cat killing someone, and Argento and Fulci got around this by evading worldly logic. They also threw in some nudity and a lot more gore that are strangely absent here. I haven't determined if this was a made-for-TV film or edited for its DVD release. If neither is true, the film doesn't subvert or otherwise justify its sophomoric conservatism. This is exacerbated in retrospect by his odd decision to typecast Annabella Incontrera as the aggressive lesbian she frequently played without showing using her implied love scene as a justification for some nudity.Crimes is an investigative melodrama for the majority of its runtime. Once the killer's identity is revealed, we get an "apology" of sorts in form of an amusing riff on Psycho. The killer attacks a woman in the shower and slices her in plain view. I remain confused as to why we must endure 85 minutes to see this, but I was in need of relief by this point. The razor cuts her breasts graphically in close-up, ironically imprinting the film unjustly into our memory. It ends in a final nod to Four Flies on Grey Velvet with a freeze frame as the credits roll. The last attack is the only inspired part of the movie, and I encourage you to skip to that part if you rent it.If you live in the United States, Crimes of the Black Cat can only be seen on DVD in a shoddy VHS transfer by the now-defunct DAGORED company. It looks as if they used an Italian tape as the master source as tracking is visible and the subtitles appear superimposed below the image and there are no other language options.

capkronos I'll go ahead and sacrifice my "helpful" score by admitting that I'm not the biggest giallo fan. For every one film classified as such that's an enjoyably stylish thriller (the best seem to come from Mario Bava, Dario Argento and Sergio Martino), there are about three that are pedestrian, lifeless, sloth-paced, visually unexciting and completely and utterly devoid of any originality. I've honestly had a difficult time trying to stay awake while watching some of these films. So, not surprisingly, I tend to disagree with others about what are actually the better films in this genre. One can gouge from the lower-than-usual score on here that this isn't one of the more popular films of its type, but I actually thought it was more entertaining than the majority of others I've seen. Why? Because it's nutty, goes OTT a few times and the killer's modus operandi is every bit as ingenious as it is ridiculous! Don't get me wrong, this is painfully derivative of many other, better films (Bava's BLOOD AND BLACK LACE and Argento's CAT O' NINE TAILS instantly come to mind), but since the exact same thing can be said for about 95 percent of the films this one shares company with, that really didn't bother me a whole lot. And silly as this was at times, it also had some legitimately great moments that deserve mention.Blind pianist Peter Oliver (Anthony Steffen) decides to play freelance Sherlock Holmes after his unfaithful model ex-girlfriend Paola Whitney (Isabelle Marchall) is killed under mysterious circumstances. A fashion house run by wealthy Françoise Ballais (Sylva Koscina) and her ex-con playboy husband Victor Morgan (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart), soon becomes the centerpiece for the obligatory string of cover-up murders to follow the first crime. Since Peter can't see, he enlists the aid of his assistant (Umberto Raho) and a fashion house employee (Shirley Corrigan) to help uncover the killer. Throw in a caped, strung-out heroin addict ("Jeannette Len"/Giovanni Lenzi), a photographer, a police inspector, a temperamental black kitty cat with toxic paws and a pair of lesbian models and your list of suspects and victims is now complete. There's the expected backstabbing, blackmail and adultery to help provide a motive, plus some nudity and gore thrown in for good measure. The cast isn't too bad (Steffen and Lenzi both do good jobs) and there are some pretty solid scenes, especially one taking place at some outdoor recycling facility (I think that's what it was) full of broken glass. Also worth mentioning is an awesomely gory shower slashing that's one of the nastiest (and best) set pieces in the entire giallo oeuvre. On the down side, the ending feels very rushed and the score isn't quite up to par, but all in all, this was a decent enough effort.

The_Void The Crimes of the Black Cat is a pretty typical Giallo, which takes influence from many of the more established genre classics. The central character is blind, which is an idea lifted from Argento's 'The Cat o'Nine Tails', and the style and plotting is clearly reminiscent of Argento's early work. The black cat is an animal often seen in horror films, and that's down to Edgar Allen Poe and his famous story about the ominous animal. The way that the cat is used in this film is good because it's instrumental to the plot (unlike other Giallo's which mention a cat in the title and barely even feature one), but it really has to be said that the modus operandi used by the murderer is completely ridiculous even for a Giallo. The plot focuses on Peter Oliver; a blind, yet rich man who finds himself at the centre of a murder investigation when his girlfriend is killed. It seems that someone has a grudge against some of the local fashion models, and all the murders have the common theme of a yellow shawl being found next to the dead victims. But how do you catch a murderer that you cannot see?Director Sergio Pastore, while taking many themes from across the Giallo genre, hasn't decided to make the film as bloody as some of its counterparts. The murder weapon doesn't allow for too much of the red stuff, but even so; it comes as a huge shock at the end when this placid film explodes with a Psycho-style shower sequence that features some of the most disgusting gore in the entire Giallo genre; and almost makes up for the lack of blood in the rest of the film. There is a lot of sleaze in the movie, however, and this is shown through ideas such as lesbianism and drug use; and that in turns blends well with the depressing urban climate in which the movie takes place. The acting is nothing special, but it's not bad in Giallo terms. Antonio De Teffè does well in the lead role and succeeds at convincing us he is actually blind. There are no real stars in the film beside him, and the lack of a heroine doesn't do the film too many favours either. Overall, this is a rather strange entry in the Giallo cycle as it has a number of good and inventive moments; but it's all encased around a lot of borrowing and tributes. Still, i wouldn't hesitate to rate this film as a success and it comes recommended to Giallo fans!

bensonmum2 Fairly standard giallo about a string of murders with fashion models as victims. The one clue is snippets of a conversation overheard in a bar that seem to be tied to the murders. The only problem is that the man who overheard the conversation is blind. With the help of his butler and one of the models, he tries to assist the police in locating the murderer.If it weren't for two key moments in this movie, it would be a totally forgettable giallo. The first is the method used by the murderer to kill a couple of the models. I won't go into detail to ruin it, so I'll just say that it's one of the most ridiculous, far-fetched, outlandish things I've seen. Most of the movie's credibility is destroyed in these moments.The second key moment is the final murder. This one works as well or better than most I've seen in any movie. It's one of the most violent, grisly razor deaths you'll likely encounter. Think of it as the scene that Hitchcock didn't show you in that famous shower. Pastore gives it to you in all it's gory detail.Other than these two memorable moments, the rest of the film is average at best. Nothing else about the movie really stands out.