Wednesday, October 02, 2013

Nightmare Concert (A Cat in the Brain)

1990 **

I am beginning to despise the term "cult classic". When I hear cult classic It makes me think of certain films that I love so much like A Clockwork Orange or Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It really pisses me off when people throw that term around loosely. Cat in the brain was labeled as a cult classic that is written by and stars Lucio Fulci. If it's truly a cult classic I don't want to meet the cult that is following this film. I found it to be just plain weird and rather disturbing.



 The film opens up as Fulci is directing a gruesome cannibalism scene. Later that evening he goes out for dinner and finds himself disgusted by the steak in front of him thinking back to the scene from the film. He begins to have more and more disturbingly violent and sexual visions so he goes to see a psychiatrist who is absolutely no help at all. As the visions worsen he begins losing control of himself in his real-life and he starts committing criminal acts or so he believes anyway. The rest of the film is spent trying to mind fuck the viewer into a game of is it real or just a hallucination?



The only redeemable quality about this film is that the Gore is typical Fulci disgustingness. I did enjoy watching him screen an eye gouge  scene over and over stating that it wasn't realistic enough while sending the FX guy trotting off with his bowl of eyeballs. The sex scenes are just gross, although the men will be happy to know that there are plenty of boobs in this film. It just felt like a roller coaster ride of good and bad, for example: murderous rampage - good/disgusting old guy twisting nipples - bad.



Fulci spends the entire film hallucinating and freaking out like a junkie going through withdrawal while lost in a corn maze. In one particularly disgusting worm ridden corpse scene the cameraman pulls in close-up on Fulci's face and he looks a bit like Heisenberg. He might have succeeded better if he was running a meth lab rather than trying to continue this deplorable film far longer than it ever should have gone. They say it isn't over until the fat lady sings, well in this case I was praying it would end when the cross eyed woman started choking out some operatic noise that resembled singing. Or it could just have been Edie Gourmet faking an orgasm. I did award it two stars for the gore and gore alone. Okay, maybe part of that rating was for the sweet little orange & white cat that dug up a dead body. Definitely not for the super fake looking cat puppets that were eating brains. Dear Mr. Fulci, why?

8 comments:

Crystal Math said...

I love how both of your reviews thus far have open up with fishbowl-lens photos of the leads.

I see myself throwing this on a lazy Friday or Saturday night after watching a heavy movie.

JPX said...

Haha, excellent review! Best line,

"They say it isn't over until the fat lady sings, well in this case I was praying it would end when the cross eyed woman started choking out some operatic noise that resembled singing."

Thank you for taking one for the team!

Landshark said...

I don't think I've ever heard of Lucio Fulci, so I'm with you on doubting the "classic" status of this one. Sounds pretty lame, but yeah, the eyeball gouging thing sounds interesting. I think one of the first movies I ever reviewed for thon was Bunuel's eye gouger.

Catfreeek said...

Crystal that was intentional and if I can keep the pattern going I will ;)

DKC said...

Once again, Cat forges forward with a movie I will never watch. I enjoyed reading about it though!

Landshark said...

I meant to ask, what's with that weird title? It's like a parody of some crappy grad school paper title.

Octopunk said...

Man! Italian horror is such a mixed bag.

I guess it's weird to say that about any country's horror flicks, but the Italians have got their own word for it and everything.

My fave line was "If it's truly a cult classic I don't want to meet the cult that is following this film." Ha!

AC said...

mildly queasy just from reading review... never gonna see it.

Malevolent

 2018  ***1/2 It's 1986 for some reason, and a team of paranormal investigators are making a big name for themselves all over Scotland. ...