One thing I often have a problem with when watching Fulci is not his gifted, truly blessed stylish touch, particularly how well he can film faces and use the dark so ominously and effectively..it's his unfocused, often incredibly pee-brained plots. This plot has this bizarre idea that a man named Robert Miles, fueling with a repressed hatred for others such as a past lady-love, can force a cat, through hypnotic suggestion to attack others(while, as we see in the opening kill, the cat itself possesses a driver to send his car straight into a parked vehicle..which means that Miles possesses the cat which possesses another man. Alrighty then.). Then, the story shifts where the cat can make Miles do it's bidding after the ex-professor attempts to kill it. Now, I didn't understand how this mumbo jumbo works so maybe you can tell me. Anyway, various victims fall prey to the cat such as a local drunk who falls on a pitchfork, a woman(Miles lady-love) who gets burned alive in her house, a young couple who are seen on the floor with foam coming out of their mouth(?!), and Inspector Gorley(David Warbeck)of Scotland Yard who is forced by the cat to walk in front of a moving car(!). Jill(Mimsy Farmer), a top-notch photographer, is in the village to lense old ruins. She comes in contact with both Miles and the cat when she hears men chatting about the mad psychic professor in a pub. Immediately her life is in great danger, especially after she's asked to take crime-scene photos and notices several cat claw gashes on a victim's hand(the drunkard who receives the pitchfork in his torso). And, the young couple found dead(due to information Miles provides his former lady-love begging for his assistance in finding her missing daughter)had locked their door from the inside of the shack where they were found leaving only a tiny duct as the only entrance in(..for which Jill sees cat footprints in sand within that duct exit). So, the cat's identity is threatened. But, as Jill seeks after the truth, will she be able to survive Miles' wrath or be trapped within a mortared wall never to be seen again?
In this film, Fulci uses a really cool camera trick by lensing from the eyes of the cat as it heads for a particular destination suggesting to the viewer that possible death was imminent. Fulci also loves to focus the camera in on the crazed(..and, at times, focused)eyes of Patrick Magee, a really intense actor who has the ability to show facets of madness so incredibly and convincingly. Fulci creates some really foreboding shots of his mad face within the dark. The film is quite Gothic with Fulci very dependent on fog as a mood piece. Not overtly violent, but gets it's point across. There are some nasty moments when the cat attacks the hands and face of certain victims. But, this is at it's best an exercise in style..which Fulci can give to us in abundance.
In this film, Fulci uses a really cool camera trick by lensing from the eyes of the cat as it heads for a particular destination suggesting to the viewer that possible death was imminent. Fulci also loves to focus the camera in on the crazed(..and, at times, focused)eyes of Patrick Magee, a really intense actor who has the ability to show facets of madness so incredibly and convincingly. Fulci creates some really foreboding shots of his mad face within the dark. The film is quite Gothic with Fulci very dependent on fog as a mood piece. Not overtly violent, but gets it's point across. There are some nasty moments when the cat attacks the hands and face of certain victims. But, this is at it's best an exercise in style..which Fulci can give to us in abundance.