A Cat in the Brain

"Cat In The Brain" is a series of extremely violent sequences knitted together by a plot that feels more like an overview, describing director Lucio Fulci's most notorious years of film-making. The movie could also be seen as a dark comedy of sorts, effectively spoofing the various claims that violent cinema causes violence in real life. Fulci goes further than that, he casts himself as the star, the central figure of the film thus showing the audience who is the man behind all the cinematic gore. "Cat in The Brain" is not about presenting a clear story and following it. Instead it pokes fun at some of the clichés that have been surrounding the horror genre for years.

Lucio Fulci plays himself as a horror director struggling to keep his humanity intact. Years of violent film making have finally began to reach him. It starts slowly, steaks and meat in general begin to disgust him, his colleagues assure Fulci that all he needs is some rest. But that doesn't help and soon the grotesque ideas for his movies begin to overwhelm his daily thoughts. In an attempt to find a cure for his dangerously maddening mental state Lucio starts going to the local psychiatrist. Unfortunately that does more wrong than good and Fulci is thrown into an even bigger mess, as the psychiatrist turns out to be a psychopath, who mimics the murders from Fulci's films in real life.

The film retains all the trademarks of Italian splatter cinema, good or bad they are all here. So any comments about the acting or the technical aspects and budget constrains are quite irrelevant as to the quality of the film. It is a visual experience, no doubts about it. Fulci throws in an incredible amount of violence easily surpassing pretty much everything he's made. Amputated by chainsaw limbs, cannibalism, child murder, decapitation, these are just some of the many grotesque acts witnessed in "Cat In The Brain". Some of them are obviously recycled from a few the director's less profile movies but they don't stand out of the context, and actually feel quite at home here. As I noted before the movie exists much better as a satire of the genre rather than a serious piece. The way some of the violence is presented does help establish that idea. Such sequences shortly after climax are rejected by the reality in the film, as they are revealed to be actually scenes inside a movie that Fulci's character is directing. This sort of "film in film" presentation lessens somewhat the impact of the gore. But in no way does it make it an easy to watch film. Oh no this is far beyond and above the levels of gore found in mainstream horror, and gorehounds will in no doubt be satisfied with that fact.

Lucio Fulci was a very polarized figure. People either hate his work or love it. "Cat in the Brain" won't convince any of Fulci's detractors in the opposite but it is nevertheless an interesting part of his filmography. One that fans should really check out.

Its bittersweet to see Lucio Fulci slumming in a film that is mostly cheap, unoriginal gore effects and dull filler footage, but Fulci bares more of his persona and sincerity to this film than his much better films. Playing himself in a ludicrous giallo plot, Fulci plays a "Greatest Hits" of his parlor tricks and cheapest techniques. This is even cheaper than his later work so there's nothing inventive or sophisticated in his camera-work or cinematography I'm afraid. But Lucio plays with his own identity and genre trappings. He returns to his roots in slapstick comedy and straightforward giallo and merges it with his metaphysical horror and psychotic splatter. It doesn't hang together as a good movie, but an interesting experiment and fun experience for fans who love him. Its a love letter to fans from a dying artist. He didn't get the chance to make great works too often, but he always had the vision and energy and even something this bizarre and unsuccessful is evidence of some kind of genius Fulci had. This is a fitting reflection of him and his imperfect but audacious career and soul.

Forget THE BEYOND--CAT IN THE BRAIN is Lucio Fulci's masterpiece. If Dario Argento is the John Ford of Italian splatter cinema, the lyric poet and publicly acknowledged grand-master, then Fulci was surely its Howard Hawks--the caretaker and solid storyteller who knew how to sink a hole in one with the easiest flick of the wrist. Splatter-geeks somehow seem to have dismissed this picture with a contemptuous shrug--maybe it's too highbrow and "conceptual" for their red-meat tastes. In a stroke of daring even Fellini and Michael Powell never tried in their self-reflexive classics, Fulci plays himself--or rather, a particularly tormented and increasingly unhinged version of himself, driven mad by the combination of guilt and bloodlust triggered by making hyperviolent horror movies. "Fulci" wonders whether he is responsible for a string of gruesome murders breaking out around him...and the movie's combination of a fiendish, id-driven love of cinema, and a shuddering revulsion at its consequences, makes this for me the most painful and personal of all movies about moviemaking. The author's conflicting emotions are played out as nakedly as in VERTIGO or BLOW OUT--only this movie has the illicit fun of its grindhouse origins. Horror afficianados may have given this picture the high hat, but I know it has at least one fan...Jean-Luc Godard.

Fulci himself had a clever concept for a movie: have the director be the main character around whom the boundaries that separate reality & movies begin to crumble. This idea prefigured Wes Craven's New Nightmare by years, but sadly the growing health problems Fulci was suffering from are clearly evident in the resulting movie.

The movie is pieced together with footage from some of his previous works and the new material looks like it was shot in and around the area where Fulci lived, so he did not have to travel far.

It is sad to see such a legendary talent slowly eroded, but Cat in the Brain, along with the awful Voices from Beyond show the inexorable decline in Fulci's work.

Remember him for Zombi 2, Don't Torture A Duckling and The Beyond, rather than this sorry affair.

Lucio Fulci has the lead in this film where he plays a director of horror flicks who suffers from depression and neurosis as an effect of his own movies. Reality and fiction blur, everywhere he goes is blood and murder, Fulci becomes insane. Meanwhile his psychiatrist turns to a sadistic slasher...

Watch this film for the gore, because the satire is rather unsatisfactory! There are many violent scenes like brutal stabbings, chainsaw-murders and as an entrance-sequence a cat is eating a brain... combined with much nudity and even some trashy moments like the Nazi orgy. Fulci does a solid job with playing himself and the gore-F/X are pretty stunning, especially at the end of "Nightmare Concert" T there´s much red juice is running!

The main weakness of this film is his forced wittyness, however mostly the jokes don´t function! Maybe some insider-jokes were featured which I didn´t understand, but the self-irony about a director who becomes a mentally victim of his own works stays empty at all!!

6/10