Lucio Fulci’s The Black Cat is a horror film that thinks it’s scary but mostly just inspires a mix of confused squinting and involuntary laughter. Imagine a black cat with the combined intelligence of a Bond villain and a caffeinated squirrel—now multiply that by 100 minutes of meandering plot, people wandering into locked rooms, and a supernatural explanation that somehow involves audiotapes of the recently deceased. Yes, you read that right: the cat is terrifying, but mostly because everyone in this movie is an idiot.
Patrick Magee plays Professor Robert Miles, a former college professor turned medium, whose daily routine involves speaking into tape recorders in cemeteries. It’s as if he’s trying to record an audiobook for the dearly departed, but somehow it’s supposed to help solve mysterious deaths. Mimsy Farmer’s Jill Trevers, American tourist and accidental sleuth, spends much of the film wandering from crypt to cellar to boathouse, looking increasingly exasperated—as any sane human would in a town overrun by cats with murderous intent.
The titular cat is treated like a lethal ninja in fur, orchestrating deaths with a combination of hypnotic stares, scratches, and the occasional property damage. Innocent bystanders like Ferguson are scared into falling on spikes, teenagers lock themselves in airtight rooms while having sex (and then die), and mothers spontaneously combust. If the moral is “don’t mess with cats,” it’s delivered with such lethargy and logistical nonsense that the audience spends more time wondering how a cat even managed these feats than actually feeling suspense.
Fulci’s direction leans heavily on style over sense. Villagers wander around like extras in a rehearsal for The Village Idiots, and the cinematography alternates between gothic charm and absurdly staged horror, often within the same shot. The editing sometimes feels like it was done by a sleep-deprived raccoon, leaving viewers to piece together events in a haze of bats, scratches, and inexplicable hypnotism.
The film’s pacing is like a cat chasing its own tail: circular, frustrating, and ultimately going nowhere. Inspector Gorley of Scotland Yard appears intermittently, seemingly there to remind us that someone in this plot is trying to act rational, only to be hypnotized by the cat moments later and run over by a car. Logic takes a backseat to feline vengeance, and poor Jill ends up bricked alive in a cellar—classic Fulci, if only slightly less coherent than usual.
Performances range from melodramatic to downright bewildered. Al Cliver’s Sergeant Wilson seems permanently on the verge of fainting, Dagmar Lassander dies in a fire with minimal fanfare, and David Warbeck’s Inspector Gorley oscillates between procedural competence and slapstick victimhood. The dialogue is a curious mix of exposition-heavy nonsense and unintentional comedy, often delivered with the grim seriousness of a student reading a recipe for disaster.
The real star, of course, is the cat—a creature whose onscreen presence dominates the film without ever explaining how a small, domesticated mammal became a supernatural force capable of murder, hypnosis, and general chaos. The plot suggests it’s connected to Miles’ suppressed hatred for the villagers, which is a generous way of saying “this cat is evil because the script demands it.”
Ultimately, The Black Cat is a movie that dares you to take it seriously while actively undermining itself. It’s a horror film built on coincidences, improbable events, and the kind of slow-burning dread that comes from watching adults repeatedly make the wrong decision. Watching it is a bit like taking part in a live-action horror board game: you know something terrible is going to happen, you just don’t know why, how, or who will survive the next poorly choreographed death scene.
If you watch The Black Cat, bring a sense of humor, an appreciation for absurdity, and maybe a catnip toy to keep yourself company. It’s unintentionally hilarious, occasionally gruesome, and utterly perplexing—a perfect storm of what makes Fulci both loved and lamented. A feline-focused horror classic, but only if your definition of “classic” includes chaos, confusion, and someone dying in every conceivable, illogical way possible.
