Edgar Allan Poe’s excellent story “The Black Cat” has
inspired several film adaptations, including this one from 1981, directed by
Lucio Fulci and starring Patrick Magee and Mimsy Farmer. I am going to just
tell you straight up that this particular style of horror film (i.e., weird) is
not our favorite. We’re also not big fans of blaming stuff on black cats and
making them out to be basically evil creatures. That said, we try to give The Black Cat a fair shot.
See, there’s this psychic who controls a cat (sort of)…
The setting is an English village, where a series of odd
events is taking place, all tied to a black cat. The movie opens with a cat’s-eye
view of a man headed off to go fishing, only to lock eyes with this black cat
and then crash his car in rather spectacular fashion. One point for the cat.
Next, we meet an American woman (played by Mimsy Farmer) who
is traipsing across the countryside in heels (as you do) taking photographs.
She discovers an open crypt with skeletons lying about, chained from the
ceiling—you know, the normal sort of thing—and she is not freaked out by this at
all.
I sort of forget the order of things at this point, because
it was about here that we started to think the whole movie would be a series of
weird, tangentially connected events. Anyway, we meet a young couple looking
for a quiet make-out spot, only they end up locking themselves in an airtight
room in a secluded boathouse (do not try this at home), whereupon the black cat
sneaks in and steals the key. He also apparently breaks the ventilation system,
so now the room really is airtight, and the couple slowly die. At least they’re
together.
We also meet this creepy old guy, Robert Miles (played by
Patrick Magee), who is apparently trying to communicate with the dead. He seems
to have a hate-hate relationship with the mysterious black cat, who scratches
him repeatedly, and it later becomes clear that Miles is controlling the cat
(or is he?), for reasons of vengeance (don’t try this at home either).
The American photographer gets roped into taking police photos
of a deceased man who was unfortunately impaled on a spiky thing (courtesy of the
black cat again). She notices some scratches on his hand, which are exactly
like the scratches she’d seen earlier on Miles. This gets her thinking. Could
this series of unfortunate events all be related to…a cat?
Killing the cat is not helpful
After yet another death (flaming woman jumps through window),
Miles decides to take care of this cat problem, by drugging the cat and then
hanging it. But the cat’s death only makes things worse, and now things get really weird, ending with Miles trying
to also “take care of” the pesky American by bricking her up in the cellar
(yes, she gets rescued).
The question in the end is whether Miles controlled the cat
or the cat controlled Miles or… Oh, I don’t know.
If you like weird horror things…
Yes, if you enjoy this kind of weird horror flick, then you
might really enjoy this version of The
Black Cat. Honestly, it is not our cup of tea. We found the story
disjointed and frankly not very enjoyable. The movie uses frequent close-up shots
of eyes, human and feline, which just got on our nerves after a very short
time. Well, the feline eyes were nice; the human eyes were often just…icky.
Still and all, this is a horror film of a certain sort, and icky comes with the
territory.
On the bright side, Real Cat Webster really enjoyed watching
the rather handsome black cat, especially in the film’s opening moments. Too
bad the cat was bent on killing people.
The Black Cat is rated R and has some nudity, adult situations, and people dying in various ways. This is not our favorite kind of movie, but, judging it for what it is, I will give it one paw.
A note on the "Paws Up" system: Miss C gives
either one or two paws up. One paw is for a good movie; two paws is for a great
movie. She never gives three or four paws because that would require her to lie
on her back...and Miss C does
not do that!
The link below is an Amazon Associates link. If you
purchase the movie through this link, old SoLT and I could get some coin for
our kibble account.