Michael's Horror Lase-O-Rama: A Cat in the Brain (1999, Box Office Spectaculars)

The 1986 animated Transformers: The Movie features a character named Kup. Kup, voiced by veteran screen actor Lionel Stander, is a grizzled old warhorse of an Autobot, a much less-psychopathic Roy Battey. He's seen things you wouldn't believe...and never misses an opportunity to reminisce. At one point in the movie, he and his companion Hot Rod (voiced by Judd Nelson) are captured, bound, and marched through an underground prison. Kup says the place reminds him of the "Nighteth Slave Mines on Galganeth Seven."

"Every place reminds you of someplace else," Hot Rod grumbles.

"Experience, lad," Kup retorts. "You should learn to appreciate it."

And Kup has a point. We're all the sums of our memories and experiences. What we've done, where we've been, and what we've seen all work to shape us into the people we are today. With A Cat in the Brain, well-known Italian gore-buff Lucio Fulci takes to the screen to ponder the effects of living a life surrounded by, and immersed in, the macabre, the dark, and the violent. If there's an overriding sentiment to the movie, it's that maybe some experiences should not be appreciated.

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I freely confess that I'm unequipped to review A Cat in the Brain except in the most superficial sense. While I've enjoyed a number of Fulci's creations, especially Zombie and City of the Living Dead, I'm not exactly a disciple. The utterly Italian 'giallo' genre of film requires heavy interest in the bizarre and grotesque, and while I've made tentative explorations into it, it's always been from a sense of morbid curiosity as opposed to professional cinematic interest. I'm a tourist in this particular city, staying long enough to see the sights but never long enough to learn the language.

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With A Cat in the Brain, I did something I never do with regards to film: I read as much about it as I could before I sat down to spin the 'disc. I'm glad I did, because far from spoiling the film, it actually enhanced my engagement with it, and I came away with a very favorable opinion.

A Cat in the Brain is, in some sense, an early 90's meta-critical look at horror, especially violent and sexual horror, captured on celluloid. It's a precursor to other pictures that attempted something similar, especially 1994's Wes Craven's New Nightmare which asks philosophical questions about the toll taken on those who produce the grotesque for a living, and 1996's Scream, which explores the way horror films and their tropes have shaped the lives of children who've grown up and assimilated their language as a part of their culture. Both of these films owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Fulci's 1990 film, and I'm ashamed to say that, prior to picking up this film a couple months back, I'd never heard of it.

How glad I am that's changed!

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The movie follows a film director named "Lucio Fulci", played by Fulci himself, who has a long and distinguished career in permanently etching nightmares into celluloid for the consumption of others and has now found himself suffering from what he considers a cat in his brain. The cat itself isn't a real kitty, but rather a creeping sensation within his head that all of the violence, the visuals, the horrors he's invented for the screen have taken up permanent residence within his skull. They "scratch" at his cerebrum, inviting him to bring forth ever more grotesque subject matter in a sub-conscious desire to explore depravity.

Mr. Fulci begins to feel its effects creeping into his world when he finds himself unable to enjoy a traditional meal of steak tartare, as the ground raw meat brings to mind a cannibalistic scene he wrapped filming earlier that day. Later on, a gardener doing work with a chainsaw outside his house brings Fulci to fits, as the sound reminds him of another scene he directed involving the dismemberment of a beautiful young woman using such a tool. Concerned that he may be suffering a nervous breakdown, he enlists the aid of psychiatrist Dr. Swharz.

The doctor, after watching every movie in Fulci's oeuvre, offers hypnotic therapy as a potential solution to the director's problems. Unfortunately the psychiatrist isn't as mentally sound as he pretends to be, and instead of helping Fulci, the man uses the hypnosis session to program horrifying thoughts into the director's mind. He tails the director, and uses the implanted suggestion to allow him to commit crimes for which Fulci will ultimately feel responsible.

As the victims pile up and Fulci's state continues to deteriorate, he suffers more and more instances where he's unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy, where nightmares of scenes from films shot by the real-life director are spliced in to visually depict the madness. In a frantic condition, no longer sure of anything but horrified at the possibility he may be involved in the killings and unable to continue his work as a director, Fulci turns to his long-time friend police inspector Gabrielli. Unfortunately, the further into the case Gabrielli digs, the more evidence surfaces linking Fulci, not Swharz, to the murders. Is it possible the decades-long exposure to his own brand of cinematic excesses has warped the director into a killer? Can we as the audience even trust the real-life Fulci who is, after all, directing himself in a film ostensibly about his own psychological breakdown?

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While A Cat in the Brain isn't the greatest horror film I've ever seen, I can't help but admire both the premise and Fulci's willingness to put himself under the microscope. The late twentieth century was a time of cultural introspection in the West, where psychologists and laypersons alike really started questioning the psychological ramifications of violence in the media. We saw it with Congressional hearings in the United States over video games like Mortal Kombat, which allowed skilled players to brutally dispatch their defeated opponents by knocking them into spiked pits, yanking out their hearts, pulling off their heads (with spinal column dangling), or incinerating them with a kiss. Newscasters a decade earlier had a field day over the film Maniac!, wondering if such movies potentially caused harm along with providing entertainment. Not even cartoons were safe from examination, for obvious reasons.

But horror films largely resisted this urge to self-examine. The BBFC's attempts at censorship during the height of the Video Nasties era did little to dissuade directors from compromising their visions, and in fact some studios and directors wore the restriction or banning of a given film like a badge of honor. A Cat in the Brain does just this, touting its own 1990 BBFC ban via a large sticker placed upon the 'disc's shrinkwrap, along with the giant red "WARNING" label printed directly onto the sleeve artwork. So, yes, A Cat in the Brain does contain scenes of depravity, violence, and gore, but not using them for their normal intended purposes. Fulci was no stranger to censorship, but it's ironic a film actively questioning whether there might be some problems with prolonged exposure to even fictional violence should itself get banned by the very people positing the same questions.

I have to applaud Fulci for this on many levels. Not just making the movie, but making the movie literally about himself by playing the lead role and using actual footage of some of the most egregious and over-the-top violent sequences he'd filmed in the years prior to its creation. Other directors have used the 'film within a film' trope too, but I've never seen one (outside of New Nightmare) which deals with its subject matter quite like this one does. For film buffs, it's worth seeing for that fact alone. Gorehounds and bloodthirsty thrill-seekers can also find stuff to enjoy, but since much of it's recycled from previous Fulci productions, there's a strong chance of deja vu spoiling the overall effect. I think I enjoyed A Cat in the Brain more by knowing of the re-used sequences, but not having actually seen them myself prior to viewing. They retained that sort of mystical, "what-the-actual-fuck?" sensibility since I wasn't able to look at them and go, "Oh yeah, that's from Massacre, and that was from Touch of Death, and that music came from The Beyond, and..."

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The laserdisc release features two different audio tracks: the original Italian mono takes up the Analog, while the English stereo dub sits on the Digital. Which track you choose to listen to will alter the film, as the final scene concludes differently in each version. The only downside is a lack of subtitles, making the Italian mix impenetrable for most US audiences. The film itself comes on a single two-sided CLV disc with a run-time of 93 minutes, but after the movie's conclusion, there are a bevy of special features to enjoy, including the film's original trailer, a gallery of still shots, information on the various video and CD releases, and some footage of Fulci at a couple of live convention appearances. Distributor Box Office Spectaculars, a label known for its grindhouse releases, went out of their way to cram as much as they could into that second side. Also included in the sleeve is a 12" x 24" reproduction of the film's original Italian poster, advertising it as Un Gatto Nel Cervellofor domestic release, and Nightmare Concert internationally.

The film has since been released on DVD in the same uncut and uncensored version as the laserdisc, meaning you can treat yourself (if that's the right term) to the film without having to invest in dead tech--probably a good thing considering this 'disc fetches a fairly high price on the market these days. The DVD includes pretty much all the special features from the laserdisc edition, and adds some more on top of it, including liner notes from Fulci's daughter and grindhouse maven Eli Roth, though it unfortunately lacks the poster.

All told, A Cat in the Brain is a fascinating look at horror cinema through the eyes of one of its most legendary and beloved directors. Part gore extravaganza, part murder mystery, and part philosophical koan, it's one of those films whose existence I was completely unaware of but now can't stop thinking about. It isn't perfect, and the English dub has plenty of problems as we often see with Italian splatter films of the period, but it asks questions worth asking, both of cinema as a whole and the audience which passively consumes the post-processed product.

Five silly little puppet felines out of five.