This Time, its Personal: Lucio Fulci’s “Cat In The Brain”

This Time, its Personal: Lucio Fulci's "Cat In The Brain" 

By Daniel M

Now making its domestic DVD debut in a lush, two-disc collectors' edition from the good people at Grindhouse Releasing (www.grindhousereleasing.com), the late Lucio Fulci's "Cat in the Brain" (known in Great Britain as "Nightmare Concert" and released in Europe under such titles as "Un Gatto nel cervello" and "I volti del terrore") is both the most outlandish entry in the maestro's epic filmography and, interestingly, the closet he ever came to creating a genuine cinematic autobiography.

In the spirit of total disclosure, I have to admit I came to this review with a bit of trepidation. While Italian Cinema is, for me, the most passionate and lively body of film around, I've always had mixed emotions about Fulci's work. While lauded for his groundbreaking gory horror films, I've always preferred his more atmospheric, Poe-inspired work: "A Lizard in a Woman's Skin"(1971), "Don't Torture a Duckling" (1972), "The Psychic" (released in 1977 and often cited as a favorite by Quentin Tarantino), and his underrated (and very loose) Poe adaptation "The Black Cat" (1981).

Yet while "Cat In The Brain" never stints on delivering a steady stream of severed limbs, chainsaw mayhem, decapitations, and heads frying in microwaves (predicting the climax of the recent "Last House On The Left" remake by some twenty years), it soon becomes clear that there something more at work here. While I won't call this the horror film equivalent of Woody Allen's "Stardust Memories" or Fellini's "81/2," it is at least an attempt at creating a spiritual autobiography, albeit a most cynical one.

The overarching cynicism extends from the film's intellectual themes all the way to the very manner in which the movie was produced - or, more to the point, "cobbled together." In a manner that would do Irwin Allen proud, Fulci recycles entire scenes from several of his own earlier triumphs, while throwing in several clips from movies he didn't even have a hand in shooting for good measure.

With this blood-splattered treasure trove of footage at his disposal, Fulci and editor Vincenzo Tomassi construct a new storyline that features Fulci himself as an acclaimed and successful (yet perpetually pissed-off) horror director who finds that a career devoted to exploring the machinations of human evil has begun to extract a deep psychological toll. Heavy stuff, indeed, and Fulci takes the opportunity to attack many sacred cows during the story, dishing out indictments of everything from the Italian film industry itself to the world of psychiatry.

Yet for all of its self-reflexive bluster, the film quickly soon settles down to become a rote exercise in cinematic violence, coasting along like a rollercoaster on an even track between killings and avoiding the more interesting meta-horror connotations explored years later in films like "Wes Craven's New Nightmare." Indeed, the weighty psychological musings in "Cat In The Brain" are handled like the Eckankar symbolism in Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear The Reaper"...they don't hit you in the face, but they're there if you want them.

Yet for all its narrative shortcomings, the team at Grindhouse Releasing has given Cat In The Brain a treatment worthy of the crowning jewel of Euro-horror. A beautiful lenticular cover, a gorgeous, meticulously restored widescreen print, an Italian-language option, a 30 minute video interview conducted with Fulci shortly before his death, and literally hours of video chats with cast members Brett Halsey, Jeoffrey Kennedy, Sacha Maria Darwin, and Malisa Longo make this release a must-own for genre completists.

At the end of the day, it's difficult to ascertain exactly where "Cat In The Brain" fits into the Fulci canon. It's far less carefully made than such true classics as "A Lizard In A Woman's Skin" or "Don't Torture A Duckling," yet it possesses a distinctive, personal vision lacking from such other later efforts as "Manhattan Baby" and "Demonia."  It's a genuinely schizophrenic, almost existential look at the nature of evil cynically pieced together from earlier, better films. As such, it neatly defies easy description.

Quite simply, you've never seen anything quite like this before.