Cat In The Brain (aka Nightmare Concert)

The fine folks over at Grindhouse Releasing sent us over a copy of Fulci's Cat In The Brain. And not just any copy, the limited lenticular 3-D cover! It's sort of gimmicky but it got my attention. I unwrapped the DVD as soon as it came out of the shipping envelope. DVD art isn't something that I usually notice (with the exception of Criterion's stuff), probably because most of it is just there. But this packaging served as more than just paper with information on it. It's sharp artwork is an eye grabber, with or without the lenticular cover. Cat In The Brain comes as a two disc set. As usual, the first disc contains the film, a restored, uncensored, director's cut that is. I must say, the picture looked great...Very sharp and vibrant, I was impressed. The second disc contains the usual fare; trailers, stills, poster art, footage of a Q&A with Fulci from the 1996 NYC Fangoria Weekend of Horrors and a small handful of interviews with Cat In The Brain's actors. I found it funny that the majority of the actors spoken to really didn't have positive things to say about Fulci's work persona. However, they always managed to throw in a "But if you knew him, he really was a kind man" for good measure. The interview that really sparked my interest was with Brett Halsey, veteran actor who began his career in the early 50's and starred in Return Of The Fly, Revenge Of The Creature & Godfather III. Mr. Halsey spoke about how he began his career, how he came to know Janet Leigh, how he eventually went to Italy to act, working with Bava and ultimately his experiences with Fulci. I was completely captivated by Mr. Halsey's charming film making tales, I could have listened to him for hours...But back to Cat In The Brain!


















Cat In The Brain is about Fulci. Literally. Fulci plays himself, a director of brutally violent horror films, who loses his grip on reality and can't tell a bloody set piece from an actual murder. As fantasy further melds with reality, Fulci seeks the help of a not so innocent local psychiatrist. Fulci spends most of the film questioning his own innocence as people go missing and are found hacked up. This film is FILLED with gore. Some of it looks great and some of it looks really bad, but even the bad stuff is entertaining. I mean, there are so many heads separating from necks and how could that ever get old? Fucli has no acting chops, he's got over acting chops and I loved it! Fulci tosses in a few interesting nods, one being a near recreation of the shower scene in Psycho. Also, there's a scene where Fulci watches a sequence he filmed in which a woman loses an eye. Fulci converses with a crew member about the quality of the eye popping and it's a bit humorous, given Lucio's history with eyeballs.

As the film progresses the body count rises. At one point I thought, "Who are these characters? Did I miss something?". It seemed like actors were being brought in, simply to be killed. I later found out that Fulci used some of the violent scenes from his old film catalog, which would explain why characters would show up with no set up or introduction to get offed. Cat In The Brain is as entertaining as pretty much anything Fulci does is...Although in this case plot loses out to fake blood. But you know what? I'm okay with that. Watching Fulci act is easily worth the price of admission and Cat In The Brain is a must have for any Fulci completist. And if you're concerned about Fulci's well being in the film, no fear, our hero makes it out alive! And ends up sailing off into the sunset with a fine young lady...That's right, Fulci's on a boat!



















Thanks again to Grindhouse Releasing for making Cat In The Brain available & letting us take an early look at it. For more information, head over to grindhousereleasing.com. Cat In The Brain is available March 31st. Check it out.