Best movie of this year hands down!

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

This is an engaging, interesting Lucio Fulci film that tends to get overlooked a little as it was made during the period where he was mostly making very gory horror films. It's a supernatural thriller made with more restraint on Fulcis' part than usual (not that there isn't any gore; there's still some nice gruesome bits to enjoy). It's full of familiar faces and is filmed on a variety of real English locations and sets.Set in England, it's "freely adapted" from the Edgar Allan Poe tale, as it tells of mysterious deaths occurring in a small country village populated by people such as snooping photographer Jill Trevers (Mimsy Farmer) and Professor Robert Miles (old pro Patrick Magee, in one of his final roles), a crotchety old man attempting to communicate with the dead. As Jill and the intrepid Inspector Gorley (David Warbeck, also of Fulcis' "The Beyond") work the clues, she can't help but notice the cat scratches left on more than one victim. Could a demonic little feline really be the culprit?Beautiful cinematography (by Sergio Salvati), extremely impressive camera-work (by Franco Bruni and Roberto Forges Davanzati), wonderful music by the prolific Pino Donaggio, and a pervasive, weird atmosphere are all assets of this well told, reasonably absorbing mystery. It's certainly fun to watch the cast in this thing. Warbeck is a delight as the cop, Mimsy is very sincere in her performance, Magee is excellent as always, and Fulci regular Al Cliver ("Zombi 2", "The Beyond"), sexy Dagmar Lassander ("The House by the Cemetery"), and the lovely Daniela Doria (recipient of a lot of abuse in Fulci films) round out the cast."The Black Cat" is entertaining stuff that finds its director in fine form, always keeping his audience on edge. He does go for the close-up (of human and feline eyes) an awful lot, but this doesn't distract too much from the various spooky goings on, including one absolutely harrowing scene of a house (and person) catching on fire.Recommended to Fulci fans.Eight out of 10.

"Based on an Edgar Allan Poe story", it says in the opening credits, meaning that both the movie and the story have a black cat in it. That's about it."The Uncanny" had already amused us with its rather silly theme of evil cats, but Fulci must have thought it wasn't enough, that there was more to be eked out of this sub-genre – and he was right. There is ALWAYS more potential when it comes to filming cats. (Just look at YouTube.) After all, a killer-cat is always funny, no matter how often you see it cause bloody havoc. Besides, on the absurdity scale of death-defying savage beasties with a predilection for executing bipedals, cats are certainly more credible than bunnies or rats, which had also been the stars of various "cute horror" flicks.Fulci added something we hadn't had before among murdering felines, and that's a cat-hanging! The cutest moment in the movie (as weird as that may sound) was seeing a tiny cat-noose being prepared, by none other than Patrick Magee. Imagine how silly that noose would look in a killer-hamster horror film. Magee then actually hangs the black cat, and I sure hope that Fulci didn't actually hang a real cat to shoot that scene (we see only the shadow). But not to worry, what Mike Myers can do, so can a black Italian cat: the vicious feline resurrects and soon continues its bloody path of mayhem and destruction. Magee, smart as he is, forgot that cats have nine lives. If only he had hung him eight more times.As is almost a tradition with Italian horror films, there are loose ends in the story. Magee stated that the cat was out to get him, but it's never even hinted at why this is the case. What caused the black cat to "hate" Magee so much? Did it not like "A Clockwork Orange"? That's hardly possibly, because as everyone should know by now, cats are intelligent animals hence presumably enjoy excellent movies. When Magee tried to take control over the American camerawoman early on, the cat attacked him thereby stopping the hypnosis. The cat didn't really have a motive to protect the woman from Magee. It did that simply because it felt like it? Still, TBC is much less maligned by holes in the script than the vast majority of other Italian horror films, and certainly superior in every way to Fulci's awful "City of the Living Dead". TBC overstays its welcome a bit, should have been somewhat shorter, but it does have a decent visual quality, a solid cast, and of course all those black cats working so hard together to flesh out the title character.

I Thought that The Black Cat was a good Italian horror directed by Lucio Fulci. The film is about Strange things that are happening in a small English village. It all starts when a man driving a car suddenly notices a strange black cat in the back seat of his car. The cat suddenly stares at the man and causes the man to crash his car into a lamp post, killing him.The black cat then walks off back to its home, which is an old house which is owened by Robert Miles (Patrick Magee), Robert is a former college professor of the supernatural and he is also a medium and he lives alone except for his black cat. He spends his time making audio tape recordings at the tombs of people who have recently died. He uses the cat on his enemies. suddenly a photographer who works for the local constables begins to notice cat scratches on some of the accident victims. I Thought that this was a good horror Lucio Fulci who has made a lot of good horror films. RECCOMMENED.

When a film by this title turned up on Cable TV, I hoped it would be the Fulci version; actually, it was Luigi Cozzi's 1989 stab at the venerable Edgar Allan Poe short story - which I then missed (and now regret having done so, after recently watching Cozzi's fine giallo THE KILLER MUST KILL AGAIN [1975]). Anyway, even if by the early 80s Fulci was well into his "gorehound" days, this loose adaptation of the much-filmed classic is a generally restrained affair - and all the better for it.Following a less than promising start (with a teenage couple shacking up in a remote cabin), the film settles down to being an atmospheric and fairly interesting psychological thriller (it's neither giallo nor straight horror) with slick cinematography by Sergio Salvati and a fine score by Pino Donaggio. The humans-threatened-by-a-feline plot recalls Hammer Films' THE SHADOW OF THE CAT (1961) and Roger Corman's THE TOMB OF LIGEIA (1964; based on another Poe tale); actually, Corman had filmed "The Black Cat" as part of his compendium TALES OF TERROR (1962) and, interestingly enough, Fulci borrowed the ending from it for his film - though the director's earlier giallo THE PSYCHIC (1977) had already featured a similarly claustrophobic finale (besides, here he revamped the attack-by-bats from his own A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN [1971])! The familiar cast is well chosen: Italian horror regulars Mimsy Farmer, David Warbeck and (a plumper-than-usual) Dagmar Lassander are okay - but the film belongs to nominal star Patrick Magee (in one of his last roles), whose distinctive voice (making the English-language soundtrack, for once, the version of choice - not that I had any!) and intense countenance (particularly when engaged in his mediumistic activities and the ongoing battle of wits with the sinister title creature) are enough to enliven any film. The voices and sounds from the beyond which he records with his cumbersome and archaic equipment lend the film an eerie tone, which actually complements the supernatural idea that a cat may be able to control a person's actions or vice versa; still, the poltergeist scene following the feline's 'death' at Magee's hands - with its spirit apparently possessing the room inhabited by the Mimsy Farmer character - is rather baffling.In the end, THE BLACK CAT may not be top-tier Fulci but it's a satisfying, indeed underrated, chiller nonetheless - one that's actually superior to most of his better-known and effects-heavy zombie flicks!