A Cat in the Brain (1990)

Sadly Over-hyped

Memorable, crazy movie

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Things open with a shot of cats hungrily devouring a gigantic human brain. We see a director devising the screenplay for his next horror yarn. "Chainsaw murders... evisceration... sadism..." he mutters to himself. The description could aptly describe the next eighty-eight minutes of this movie, which contain more severings, slashings, and body parts than most gore films put together.Lucio Fulci's oddest movie is a real mixed bag. On one hand it has a really interesting premise in that Fulci is essentially playing himself, on set while directing his gory movies, so it's a movie-in-a-movie type plot like WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE (only this came first) that has the opportunity to explore the link between the violence in horror films and the violence in real life (and if movies have any effect), and what prolonged exposure to gory violence might do to a man! As well as this, it's a study of Fulci's supposed psychological state so gets a bit confusing as you can well imagine.On the other hand, the movie is simply an excuse to string together a series of incredibly gory set-pieces from previous Fulci films and others, and then to "insert" Fulci's character into these scenes as if he is witnessing the murders first hand. The effect is an interesting, if muddled one, marred by some extreme technical faults (skies and backgrounds are different colours in film segments) which are par for the course for no-budget productions like this.Fulci himself takes the leading role of the confused director, making this a must-see movie for his die-hard fans. Realising that he himself is not, and can never be, an actor, Fulci instead opts for a tongue-in-cheek performance which seems to be a case of either love it or hate it for horror fans. Personally, I think he copes admirably with the role and the comedy. Speaking of comedy, some of it is intentional but a lot of it is not, such as the cheesy dubbing and the over-the-top extravaganza of some of the set-pieces. Take for example David Thompson's turn as the crazed psychiatrist - this guy goes so over-the-top as the crazed slasher that his performance has to be seen to be disbelieved! The hilarious highlight in my mind is when Fulci repeatedly runs some poor fool who got in the path of his car - classic stuff, and for some reason extremely funny.Gore hounds certainly get their money's worth with this movie, even if the majority (but not all...) of the effects and sequences are taken from previous films (thus Brett Halsey is billed in the cast as "the Monster" even though he never actually acted in this film - hmm, wonder how he feels about that?). Kicking off with a corpse being chainsawed, minced and fed to pigs, the film includes a Nazi sadist orgy, lots of eyeballs, beheadings, behandings, a melting head in a microwave, maggotty corpses, bloody stabbings, a PSYCHO-derived (but even more shocking) shower murder, chainsaw and trunk decapitations, a piano-wire throat garrotting, and oodles more. Of course, it's all pretty cheap and fake-looking but there's so much of it, it all becomes a bit overwhelming - especially to the BBFC who banned it outright when the film was subjected for video release in the UK.Definitely a must-see for lovers of the bizarre or those looking for something a bit different from Fulci, although it's a lot different to the zombie films he is most widely known for. Although there is lots to hate about it, I think there is even more to like and find interesting, which is why I recommend this as a "at least see it once" kind of movie.

Italian film director Lucio Fulci portrays an Italian film director named Lucio Fulci in this film made up primarily of films made or produced by Lucio Fulci with a wraparound story about Lucio Fulci being affected by the disturbing films he has made and also the one he is currently making.If that summary confuses you, congratulations, because you are sufficiently prepared to enter Nightmare Concert. I really did feel like I was participating in someone else's bad dream. I was never quite sure what was actually happening to the Fulci character, what was an hallucination of his, or what was part of the film-within-a-film that the director is working on. Throw in a crazy subplot about a real killer in Rome trying to frame Fulci and you should end up like me - confused and disoriented, yet entertained.Sure, this isn't up there with Fulci's best, but I get the impression he was trying to have a little fun with his image and career and although it's a bit of cheap ploy to insert gore scenes from other movies, at least they're quality gore scenes and fun to watch. Nightmare Concert is quite a good time if you go into it without trying to compare it to your favorite Fulci film(s).ff

Thankfully, there are now quite a few uncut releases of 'A Cat In The Brain' on DVD. Not surprisingly this film suffered a great deal from the censors back in the days; just watch it for yourself and you'll get the picture. So I re-watched an uncut version recently, and boy, this still is such a 'fun' film. Whatever Mr. Fulci's intentions were at the time - must have been more than one, that's for sure - I'm still strongly convinced (more than ever, actually) that 'A Cat In The Brain' was partly intended to be a comedy. The movie is virtually plot less, or instead of a plot, it basically has only plot holes (think the size of Nebraska) tied together with hints at a plot. There's a hint at a murder mystery here, about a deranged murderer killing random people, though it's merely reduced to a background story. And as you all have probably read by now, it stars Fulci playing himself. It's also one of Fulci's most incoherent films. It also is quite ridiculous. And it all feels like it was meant to be this way. Literally stuffed with gore footage (both new and some lifted from his previous films), it's undoubtedly Fulci's most insane movie. Good stuff!

This movie was made around the time that Lucio Fulci was starting to lose his touch. Before, his movies were not only gore-filled, but they had a story, great writing, and great camera shots that were very beautiful for something any other Italian director (besides Dario Argento) could not produce. Near his death, his movies seems very poor, and somewhat distasteful. The only two movies I could watch of his were Aenigma (1987), and The House of Clocks (1989). Though, Un gatto nel cervello (The Cat in The Brain) is a very entertaining movie that Fulci produced near his death. One of the main reasons, is that Fulci actually stars in it... AS HIMSELF! The plot line is basically Fulci has been driven insane by his movies or whatever, and he starts imagining scenes from his movies being played out in real life. What this means, is that there is a lot of stock footage with in the movie, mainly from Touch of Death and Sodama's Ghost, two recent movies Fulci had produced before. I liked how the scenes were integrated into the movie, though you could tell that the footage was stock somewhat if you've actually seen the movies. Anyway's the movie is entertaining, though the gore kind of does lose the touch of any other Fulci gore epic before. Though the thing that surprises me, is that Fabio Frizzi (composer of some Fulci films such as Zombie, The Gates of Hell, and The Beyond) is actually the composer of this movie's music. You can actually tell by the bass line, sort of. I wish I could find a soundtrack for this movie, if there is one.