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A CAT IN THE BRAIN Starring Lucio Fulci, David Thompson and Malisa Longo
The career and legacy of Italian film maker Lucio Fulci is a very rich one. Fulci started making films in the 1950s. It wasn't until the 1970s that Fulci started to enter the realm of horror films. A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, Dracula In the Provinces and The Psychic were among his early efforts. It was his 1979 living dead film, Zombie (aka Zombi 2 - the "2" added after the success of George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead, titled Zombi in Europe) that earned him his reputation. Fulci followed up his masterpiece with such films as City of the Living Dead (aka The Gates of Hell), The New York Ripper and The Beyond in the early 1980s. In 1990, Fulci decided to act in a major role for one of his films. In this film, Fulci would portray himself. The film's title: A Cat in the Brain (aka Nightmare Concert).
Fulci is writing his newest script. Thoughts of extreme violence are floating around his head, as it is revealed (quite literally) that Fulci has a cat in his brain. This cat is mashing about his brain matter while whispering evil thoughts. This graphic visual suggests to the viewer exactly where Fulci's ideas for violent scenes in his films come from. As Fulci is trying to cope with his everyday life, he begins to lose a grip on what real life is supposed to be. He is consumed by thoughts of violence which play over and over in his head. He visits a new psychiatrist and as part of his therapy, is hypnotized.
Many people are murdered, and in very similar ways to characters in Fulci's movies. Fulci wonders whether or not he is going mad. He then goes to the home of his regular psychiatrist and finds nothing but dead, mutilated bodies.....was Fulci the murderer, or was it the work of someone trying to make it appear to be Fulci...... A Cat in the Brain is one of the last films that Fulci's made before he died. After making such supernatural films as Demonia and undead films as Zombi 3 in the late 1980s, Fulci returned to the screen with a straightforward gore film. Many images in the film are reminiscent of gore sequences that Fulci had done before. Fans of his later films will be satisfied with this entry in Lucio Fulci's filmography.
FW Video presents A Cat in the Brain 1.33:1. The film was shot on 16mm film, hence there are no theatrical matte bars. All 16mm graininess aside, A Cat in the Brain looks fantastic. The image is relatively clean and colorful, bearing no distracting damage. There is a little artifacting present, most noticeably during the scene in a boatyard. The audio is clean and loud. For a film that was shot on 16mm film, the audio quality does not get any better than this. There are no extras on the disc. The fact that the film is available on DVD at all is amazing. The film never had such a wide theatrical release like Zombie or City of the Living Dead. Grindhouse Releasing, a company dedicated to bringing to the public what was once obscure in genre films such as Cannibal Holocaust, Cannibal Ferox and Fulci's The Beyond, released A Cat in the Brain in the late 1990s on the laserdisc format. However, it was released just as the laserdisc format was in its twilight years.
Fulci died in 1996, but his films still astonish arthouse patrons, film buffs and horror fans today. Because of his films, he is often referred to as "the maestro." If there ever was a film directed by Fulci that represents his body of work, it is A Cat in the Brain. |
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