Showing posts with label Edgar Allen Poe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Edgar Allen Poe. Show all posts

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Lucio Fulchi's The Black Cat

Hiya gang. Well we have viewed a few TV series and I was initially going to talk about DC Comics Legends of Tomorrow but... I wanted to watch a movie instead. Yup, no real rhyme or reason to the week. I just decided to switch gears. Today's review will be instead a Lucio Fulchi horror movie based on the writings of Edgar Allen Poe. No I am not going into great lengths who Edgar Allen Poe is. Read a book, short story or any of many biographies about the man. This story hails about a professor of the occult, psychology and parapsychology who feels to exact vengeance on those that had wrong him in the past and present. A plucky photographer feels there is more to than words.

This is The Black Cat.

CLEAN UP MY POOPS!!!













We see a fisherman make his way to the car and drive through a village that looked like Notting Hill as he and the black cat make vicious eye contact, distracting said fisherman causing him to crash through his windscreen causing him to bleed out and his car to burst almost instantly in the flames. A clear factory recall. Yeah that is all in the first two minutes. Gotta say Fulchi never skimps on violence but right out of the gate seems to be his m.o. An elder gentleman sits in his study listening to recordings he has made conversing with the dead via electronic tape. The same black cat makes his way into his study, slashing the professor for not cleaning up his poops quick enough and saunters out.

Cut to young blonde photographer Jill (Mimsy Farmer of Body of Love, The Suspects, Autopsy, The Istambul Train and The Girl from Trieste) has traveled into an ancient dungeon to spy on the Crimson Executioner's former handy work, possibly an BDSM rave that when horribly wrong (the safety word was pickles) when a copper shoos her from the cemetery she was taken snapshots. After discovering a modern day adapter to a battery or recorder she is left with a bit of confusion. But enough of that, it's clearly time of teens played by twenty somethings to get freaky. Another trope of Fulchi is get the boobage in and out of the way. Our young stupid lovers sneak into a boat house that is SOUNDPROOF and AIR TIGHT. Things you do not associate with make out spots.


Um, are you giving me the creeper eye?














We bounce around back to the cemetery in the middle of the night as the prof doesn't seem to have any luck “talking to the dead” and just seems to be null and void with it. Meanwhile the teeny boppers are slowly suffocating in said boathouse with no one aware whatsoever. Scotland Yard is requested a detective Inspector Gorley (David Warbeck of Duck, You Sucker, The Beyond, Hunter of the Apocalypse, Fatal Frames, Pervirella and Razor Blade Smile) to assist in finding the teeny boppers.

Jill meets with Professor Miles (Patrick McGee of Marat/Sade, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, Chariots of Fire, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne and Play for Today) conversing over his chatter with the dead and yes I could see how the village thinks he is a complete nutter butter as he creepy eyes he delivering his dialogue. Telling her of his psychic abilities to interact with the dead then is trying to overtake her mind. Kinda of a jerk move and the cat didn't care for it, slashing him. Miles explains they need one another as they are bound by their anger. Sith lord stuff I am speculating.

The drunken Irish Groundskeeper NOT NAMED Willie claims Miles is a wackjob talking to headstones and being all creeper like. After an all day drinking binge (again remember he is Irish) he wanders back home when he is stalked by the black cat. The cat traps him in a hay loft taunting him with growls, slashing him and leaving him to fall on a pitchfork...the kind that apparently stands upright and can support a grown man's weight. Jill thinks something is amiss with Miles and his cat but only Gorley believes her.  Miles tells Jill with patented creeper eye that the cat is to blame for those youngins death in a methodical manner, carefully played to detail. The cat is more than appears and he is easily riled. 

Will Scotland Yard take action? Will it be public execution if they put him to sleep? Will they grace his grave with Greenies?



With the exception of Miles and the cat, there is no direct link to the film to the short story. This is a dark morbid tale with decent gore effects, creeper mood music and a good cast. Lot of patented eye zooms via Fulchi but ever since Zombi I am just expecting an eye gouge every time.


Does it look like the creeper eye??



Monday, July 27, 2015

Adrian Paul Week: Masque of the Red Death


A fine hello to all that is reading the blog and welcome to Day 1 of Adrian Paul Week. Initially, as most of you know I do like to get to the humble beginnings of all actors/directors/writers but I do not think my heart could have handled a spin-off of Dynasty known as The Colbys. 19 episodes about entitled wealthy white people holds no interest to me at all. With that in mind, we move on to a film adaptation of an Edgar Allen Poe short story filled with intrigue, thrills and perhaps a murder or two. Now before you all get excited I must warn you up front this a Roger Corman production. The second attempt after the 1964 film starring Vincent Price. This is Masque of the Red Death.

Can't get that Queen song out of my head.













While a virulent plague is laying waste to his kingdom, Prince Prospero (Adrian Paul of Last Rites, War of the Worlds, Dark Shadows, The Owl, Highlander, The Breed and The Void) awakes from a horrific nightmare. Comfort found in the arms of his wife/sister Lucrecia (Tracy Reiner of Die Hard, When Harry Met Sally..., A League of Their Own and Apollo 13) Prospero decides to hold a gathering (NO! NOT A HIGHLANDER REFERENCE!!!), a soiree of his friends for drunken debauchery and ravaging of the women. You know, good times. They will stave off the impeding plague in luxury and hedonism whereas the peasants are left to fend for themselves. His friend Claudio (Jeff Osterhage of The Texas Rangers, Knight Rider, Moonlighting, South of Reno and Dark Before Dawn) grabs up a myriad of birds for the impeding feast as well as all the good looking women in the village, so clearly if you are well-to-do bachelor let Claudio do your shopping.

Mr. Brand? This basement is stinky.













One of the ladies in question is the lovely Juiletta (Clare Hoak of Freddy's Nightmares, Masque of the Red Death, The Terror Within II, Deadly Deception and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York) which the prince has his eyes on. Salivating over young Juiletta, Lucrecia seems almost taken back that her brother/husband is looking for new conquests to be had. The ball is in set to begin when a guest arrives dressed head to toe in red. Does this guest have a sinister motive for attending this shindig? Is there to be a murder on the rise? Will the nobles lose their heads figuratively or literally?



A few comments now on the film. On a technical aspect of the movie, lighting and sound are spot on but the sets look drab and dull. The costumes do not have the same bright and lavish colors they could and frankly the film itself looks like it was shot for a TV movie. The opening credits show some great slow pans around various medieval torture devices as the equipment hangs. I about choked on my Coke Zero as I had to see the late great Sir Patrick McGee in his costume. Camp will do nicely. A few torture scenes occur but are extremely tame and the nudity seems to only serve to show off B-movie actresses Maria Ford, Clare Hoak and Adrian Paul's build.  FYI, you know you have seen too much schlock movies when you can spot and identify a B-movie actress of some ill-repute.


The blood and gore factor is nothing to what I was expecting in a horror thriller but hey that alone is refreshing for me. The gags were remarkably calm but still well shot. I am confused why they felt the need to add the incestual aspect of Prospero and Lucrecia's life when it had no real barring aside from me going ick. Not exactly the taboo if you have no follow through. I do not blame Mr. Paul for this production as so much realize that a young actor had to take the parts readily available for him. If you need a production of this film I recommend the 1964 version with Vincent Price or Hell, even the 1990 version with Frank Stallone. Yeah I just gave kudos to a Frank Stallone movie.

Best Pantene commercial ever!