|
It would be Lucio Fulci, wouldn't it, who aims to revive Hammer horror with a Poe adaptation that doesn't have much to do with Poe. (Neither did Ulmer's version, for that matter, and both are pellucid hallucinations from morbid poets.) The prowling ankle-level camera is the stylistic gambit, it slips into the back of a car during the overture so that the driver can notice the furry stowaway moments before his head goes crashing through the windshield. "An epidemic of accidents" in an English village, all point to the misanthropic medium (Patrick Magee) who keeps the scratching little bugger as a pet. He records the sounds of graveyards and considers death "the beginning of a new journey," the paranormal bond with his malevolent cat is his strongest relationship. Skewered drunkards, burned matriarchs, a pair of randy juveniles suffocating in a locked room. (The relatively graceful note of a flickering candle going out is duly answered by a glimpse of a rotting corpse.) Local constable (Al Cliver) and Scotland Yard inspector (David Warbeck) go around in circles, the American shutterbug (Mimsy Farmer) has an inkling. "Did I frighten you?" "Just a little." Buckinghamshire becomes the director's turf as soon as a half-open tomb is found amid the greens, naturally the heroine enters to marvel at the skeletons underneath. The yellow feline pupil reigns in the symphony of eye close-ups, an attempt to kill it cuts from the dangling figure in silhouette to bedroom windows exploding. Finally, bricks and mortar in the cellar, cf. The Psychic. "The dead like to be left alone" is the warning unheeded, "they're not very hospitable." With Dagmar Lassander, Geoffrey Copleston, Bruno Corazzari, and Daniela Doria.
--- Fernando F. Croce |