6.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Dr. Lucio Fulci is a director of splatterfilms. He stages a gestapo-orgy like it was any other movie scene. But he is influenced by these things more than he likes. He is hunted by bloody visions day by day. Is Fulci still normal? He asks a psychatrist. He doesn't know that the psychatrist has much bigger problems than Fulci himself. The psychatrist uses Fulci's visions for brutal murders in real life...
Starring: Lucio Fulci, David L. Thompson, Malisa Longo, Shilett Angel, Jeoffrey KennedyHorror | 100% |
Foreign | 34% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.65:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.66:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
Italian: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
English
Blu-ray Disc
Three-disc set (2 BDs, 1 CD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 5.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
While he doesn’t command the respect his peers receive, director Lucio Fulci has made his mark on horror cinema. The Italian filmmaker has helmed his share of stinkers, but the ones that broke through and found an audience, including 1981’s “The Beyond,” were memorable excursions into screen violence and loopy artistry, while his attention to gory details turned him into a legend with the Rotten Cotton generation, creating some of the vilest imagery the genre could summon. 1990’s “Cat in the Brain” (titled “Nightmare Theater” on the Blu-ray) isn’t one of Fulci’s finest pictures, but it’s certainly his most bizarre. Instead of embarking on a fresh round of chilling events and hysterical characters, Fulci instead recycles prior accomplishments, stitching together old footage from his filmography to beef up a simplistic story of madness colored by exposure to moviemaking. “Cat in the Brain” is a weird picture, not always for the right reasons, but it certainly bears the Fulci brand, surveying all types of carnage and despair, often for no reason at all. It’s a greatest hits package from the helmer, either explained away as a wild experiment or an unusually determined contractual obligation.
Dealing with what looks like less than ideal source issues, the AVC encoded image (1.65:1 aspect ratio) presentation is unavoidably soft, keeping detail subdued. It's not a sharp viewing experience, lacking robust texture, but this is likely the best the movie has ever looked on home video, while the feature's collection of clips from different productions is evident throughout. Grindhouse appears to be doing what they can here, finding colors nicely refreshed, retaining original consistency, with expected highlights being bloody reds and primaries emerging from costuming. Delineation goes as far as 16mm cinematography allows. Grain fluctuates, looking quite heavy at times. Damage isn't a concern, but reel changes and speckling are detected.
The 1.0 DTS-HD MA sound mix doesn't come through with any type of furious activity, but it handles the essentials of the track securely. A dubbed picture, dialogue exchanges are thick and easy to follow, and emotional extremes are comfortable, never hitting crispy highs. Scoring is never going to be precise, but the musical mood is set without distortion. Sound effects are amplified to encourage chills, finding all the slicing and chopping in its appropriate place. Hiss and pops are minimal.
There are moments of obsession and insanity where "Cat in the Brain" resembles a lost DePalma production, and there are times when the movie looks like it was assembled over a long weekend, padding like crazy to reach feature-length standards. It's entertaining, especially for Fulci fanatics, but it takes a relaxed mind to embrace it. More of a career overview than an original endeavor, "Cat in the Brain" takes some time to get used to, but eventually its oddity and incompleteness begins to make its own kind of sense. Ones goes to a Fulci film for the excess anyway, and this effort is all kinds of icky and sleazy.
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