Lucio Fulci's A Cat in the Brain (a.k.a. Nightmare Concert) (1990)

Title: A Cat in the Brain (1990)

Director: Lucio Fulci

Comments:

I guess horror directors tend to worry a lot about how people perceive them. Many of them might be worried that people think they are demented psychos looking to bring their gory images to life. When in reality most of the time, horror directors are just mild mannered, educated, well versed human beings. I guess this film was Lucio Fulcis way of saying "I aint a criminal or a killer, Im just a regular guy who lives making horror films!"

Story goes something like this: Lucio Fulci (playing himself) is trying to direct his latest horror film. He is having trouble doing it because every where he looks and everything he does reminds him of some gory horror moment from one of his films. So he is constantly tormented by visions of gory mayhem. He will be doing some every day chore and whamo! some gory death will pop into his brain. He goes looking for psychiatric help, to see if he can calm down these horrific nightmares. Will Fulci start killing people just like his characters do in his movies?

While some people say that this is Fulcis 8 1/2, I really wouldnt go that far. Maybe in premise and themes, but obviously not in an artistic level, not in a quality level and certainly not in its acting and writing. This is after all, not Fulcis best film. This was really Fulci directing a film during his last days on this earth, literally. Id say its a low budget gory version of  8 1/2. A Cat in the Brain does have some elements you would find in a  Federico Fellini film, but ultimately, they are nothing alike. For example, Fellini had a fascination with women. His adoration for beautiful women was evident in all of his films. In 8 1/2 he has a whole sequence in which he mentally revisits all the women that have ever been a part of his life, and in the end decides to stay with his wife, and deletes all these women from his mind. Fellinis love for women was also evident with the extremely beautiful actresses he always chose for his films, Anita Eckberg being one of the first to pop to my mind, but she wasnt alone, there were many other extremely beautiful women in Fellinis films. Fulci does the samething, but he does his own sleazy version of it. While Fellini never showed any female nudity (that I can recall) he simply admired women from an aesthetic and psychological angle, Fulci goes into a more sexual potrayal of women. By this I mean, he has a lot of nudity in this film! Not only that, he has the movie end with him accompanied by a beautiful woman going on a boat ride with him in the sunset! Comparing Fulci with Fellini because of this film, just isnt right. They are two very different directors.

Still, its interesting to see Fulci doing such a personal film. And even more interesting to see him playing himself in this movie. The horror director trying to deal with the gore and violence that he sees everyday on his films. Apparently, after a while, making these kinds of movies can get to you and this is Fulcis way of saying "this shit aint easy on a day to day basis!" A Cat in the Brain is similar to Clive Barkers Nightbreed because of its premise. Fulci goes to his shrink to get some help from him, to see if his shrink can help him deal with the nightmarish images that keep popping up into his brain, but same as Nightbreed (spoilers ahead) its the shrink who decides to do the killing! (end of Spoilers) Now this is a more reasonable comparison then the Fellini one. I agree Barker and Fulci would defenetly play in the same ballpark. Both Fulci and Barker love extreme gore and shock.

Unfortunately, inspite of the movie having an interesting premise (that of Fulci going slightly coo-koo from making so many gory horror movies) the movie kind of falls flat after a while because it becomes redundant. Okay, I get this idea that Fulci is having gory images flashed into his brain from time to time, and that its driving him nuts. But unfortunately the film goes on and on in a loop showing Fulci doing everyday normal things, and then showing a gory death. Fulci might be chopping up some tomatoes, and suddenly he'll think his chopping off someones head, things like that. But the movie goes on and on this way, without really getting any plot line going or anything. His shrink keeps following around, but even this side story is resolved very quickly and in a very unsatasfying manner. So the movie kind of becomes monotonous after a while.

I mean, dont get me wrong, the gory scenes are awesome, and fun to watch. And they are very extreme. One of the death sequences in the film has a girl being stabbed to death in a shower, which was sort of the gory graphic version of Hitchcocks shower scene. Psycho's shower scene is very effective, but it isnt graphic in nature at all! So this was Fulci saying, heres my version of it! I understand this film has moments where it shows its influenced by Hitchcocks films, but saying that Fulci has perfected suspense film with A Cat in the Brain was an overstatement.

The deaths are plenty, and they are graphic, gore fans should be pleased with this one.  Some of the deaths are really deaths from other films with Fulcis wrap around story in between. Some of the goriest moments come from other directors horror films. These are Italian horror film directors that Fulci apparently endorses, so he decided to include clips from their movies in his. The clips included in the film come from the following films:

The Ghosts of Sodom (1988) (directed by Lucio Fulci)

Dont be Afraid of Aunt Martha (1988) (directed by Mario Bianchi)

Touch of Death (1988) (directed by Lucio Fulci this one is on dvd!)

Bloody Psycho (1989) (directed by Leandro Luchetti)

Escape from Death (1989) (directed by Enzo Millioni)

Massacre (1989) (directed by Andrea Bianchi)

Hansel and Gretel (1989) (directed by Giovanni Simonelli)

All in all, not a very deep film. Though its a personal film and Fulci analizes himself and how his films affect his psyche, the film didn really make the best of its premise and became redundant and dull story wise. Gore wise you'll have a good time, but story wise you' ll be wanting a bit more meat.

Rating: 2 1/2 out of 5

Lucio Fulci's Conquest (1983)

Title: Conquest (1982)

Director: Lucio Fulci

Review:

After Conan the Barbarian was released in 1982 its success spawned a whole slew of immitations. Often times, these imitations would pale in comparison to John Milius's excellent fantasy tale. Amongst the american imitators the most prominent one in my book is Don Coscarelli's The Beastmaster, which is a fun little movie on its onw, but is basically the same movie, same plot, but with a guy who talks to animals and a far smaller budget. In the Italian film market, many more cheap imitations of Conan the Barbarian emerged. Lucio Fulci, being one of the most prominent b-movie directors from Italy did his own cheap imitation of Conan. The result was Conquest.

Story is almost non existent, but essentially, what we have here are two guys living in a barbaric caveman like fantasy world filled with all sorts of weird creatures. Life is savage in this strange land, so these two guys team up to face the world together. One of them, Ilias, is a skinny wimpy looking dude, but apparently he is the son of a Zeus-like God who gives him a magical crossbow. The other guy is a Conan like barbarian who goes by the name of Mace, cause you know, he uses a nun-chuck kind of mace to protect himself from his enemies. Also, he almost always answers in monosilabic words, saying everything he has to with as little words as possible. Meanwhile, in some other part of the land, an evil sorceress queen who goes by the name of Zora has a vision in which this faceless warrior with a magical crossbow is going to destroy her. So she sends out her minions to try and stop him.

This is just another run of the mill Italian rip off, and trust me, there were many of those! What Fulci did was, he gathered all these elements from a bunch of previously released American fantasy films. So what we have here is a jumbled mess of film that incorporates elements from far better films of its genre, all of which had bigger budgets then this one. Ill mention just how many films Conquest was a rip off of, just so you get an idea. First one in the line is Beastmaster. Why? Because Mace, the super tough dude who looks an awful lot like Arnold Schwarznegger, can communicate with animals! He talks to eagles and dolphins! We get elements from Conan the Barbarian, because Mace looks like a cheap imitation of Schwarzneggers Conan. You know the kind. A big tough muscular dude who doesnt say much and wont think twice before cracking your skull in two. Another thing we get from the Conan the Barbarian is the evil Queen who belongs to some sort of snake worshipping cult, just like Thulsa Doom did in Conan the Barbarian. Also, the film is centered around revenge. Same as in Conan, the evil snake worshipping cult kills the good guys family and destroys his village, so he has to go on a revenge spree. The cavemen on this movie look and even act exactly like the cavemen in Quest for Fire. And to top things off, this movie also rips off Clash of the Titans because one of its main characters (Ilias) is a son of a Zeus-like God (just like Perseus in Clash of the Titans), and even gets a special weapon from this God to aid him through his quest. So as you can see, this isnt exactly the most original of films. Fulci just fed off a bunch of other films.

Problem is, that Fulci ended up taking elements from films that had a far bigger budget then the one Conquest had. So what happens is, this film ends up falling short in the make up effects and visual effects department. What you end up getting is a cheap, laughable version of all those other films that I mentioned before. Biggest problem for me is that Conquest ends up being boring as hell. Why? Well, its normal in a fantasy film for characters to go from battling one monster to the next, and this happens on Conquest. Ufortunately, the monsters arent all that impressive. Its just guys in really cheap monster suits. Over and over again. And what happens when the good guys fight these men in monster suits? Not much, basically the same thing you see in all these cheap Italian films: people hurling each other through the air, fighting and wrestling for a couple of minutes until the good guys beat them. So its that kind of a film. No budget? Well, just get a bunch of guys to fight and wrestle each other on the screen for a while, then move on to the next boring ass fight.

"But its a Fulci film!" you say. Yeah, its a Fulci film. But you have to remember, Fulci didnt always hit the mark with his films. He has quite a bunch of just plain bad films on his resume. In my opinion, he was better off directing horror films. Fulci did fill this film with more gore then you'd normally get on a fantasy flick. The first few scenes open up with a Werewolf Clan (yup theres a werewolf clan on this film!) tearing up a native into shreds. Its a pretty graphic sequence, where each werewolf takes there favorite limb and rips it right off! Sadly, the movie does not maintain that level of entertainment all through out. It was just an amusing way to open up the film. And then there are some scenes that will really test your patience! There was this one scene where Mace is being crucified by these monsters (yeah, same way Conan was crucified in the tree of woe) and then while still crucified falls into the ocean. He is under water for far longer than it is humanly possible! More than ten minutes pass before he reemerges from the water. And this happens because he telepathically asks these dolphins to help him out! Fulci decides to show off this nifty footage of dolphins swimming left and right and it gets so freaking annoying! One starts feeling like "get to the fucking point goddamit!"  Its that kind of a movie. This being a Fulci movie, zombies make it onto the film somehow, and this being a Fulci movie, we gets tons of naked women all through out the film, and I mean lots. Dont have a budget? Just get every actress to appear topless! Guys will no doubt show up to see the movie that way. Gotta say, the actress playing the villain was hot as hell. Kudos to Fulci for choosing hot babes for his flicks, it helps alliviate the pain of being bored to death.

I guess you could say Conquest is an amusing film in the sense that its so fucking stupid and silly, that you cant help but continue watching. Its what held me through till the bitter end. I wanted to see where Fulci could take this film. Turns out, Fulci could take this movie really really low! Try this one on for size: the main character uses a magical crossbow that shoots a lazer like arrow that devides in the air and hits all of your villains at once! Why didnt this guy use this magical crossbow earlier in the movie?? Funniest part is when the guy calls up the arrow (cause you know, you just gotta call up your weapon so it comes to ya!) it flies to him across the skies and lands right in his hand! Funny, funny film. If your in the mood for a cheap laugh, by all means, pop this silly fantasy film in your dvd player. Not Fulcis best thats for sure, but it just might entertain ya with its silly antics and its cheap ass effects. Oh, wait, did I mention the terrible dialog? Well, I just did. You've been warned!

Rating: 2 out of 5