The Black Cat – 1981, Italy, 91m. Director: Lucio Fulci.
The Boy Who Cried Werewolf – 1973, US, 93m. Director: Nathan Juran.
Student Bodies – 1981, US, 86m. Director: Mickey Rose, Michael Ritchie.
THE BLACK CAT (1981) A man, seemingly hypnotized by a black cat, drives his car off the road and smashes through the windshield, killing himself. This violent pre-credits sequence is suspenseful and well executed. Unfortunately, it also happens to be one of the few exciting moments in an otherwise mediocre supernatural thriller from Italy’s reigning king of spaghetti splatter, Lucio Fulci. Although the film is based on the Edgar Allan Poe short story, the plot has very little to do with its source material. The movie—as far as I can tell—is about a codger (Patrick Magee) who, through a psychic link, uses his cat as a conduit to manipulate the murders of those he feels wronged him at some point in his life. The British countryside and use of British actors doesn’t stop Fulci from bringing out his trademark zoom lens (which he uses on Magee by repeatedly focusing on the man’s eyebrows) and on-screen carnage, the best instance being a woman’s demise by fire—her eyes manage to move as her face goes up in flames, giving the sequence a particularly unnerving touch. For Fulci aficionados only. C+
THE BOY WHO CRIED WEREWOLF (1973) A divorcee (Kerwin Mathews) and his young son (Scott Sealy) are attacked by a werewolf while on a camping trip. The wolf man dies in the attack but Mathews is bitten and, come the next full moon, transforms into a fanged beast. Sealy’s excitement over his father’s battle with a werewolf takes control of him but troubles others, who write the boy off as having an overactive imagination. Mathews goes on a bloody bender the first night out in hairy form, causing a traffic accident and tearing a TV repairman to pieces. Since this is a post-modern werewolf movie we get the obligatory scenes of Mathews arguing with his ex-wife (Elaine Devry) and encounters with a hippie commune that’s an updated version of the gypsies from the old B&W monster movies that supplies characters (and audiences) with answers to the metaphysical questions. Goofy werewolf makeup and too many day-for-night shots give them film a slightly campy vibe, but this is still a harmlessly enjoyable film if seen in the right light. C+
STUDENT BODIES (1981) A stupid but enjoyable parody of slasher movies that laid the ground work for slapstick horror comedies like Scary Movie. Opening on the “holiday” of Jamie Lee Curtis’s Birthday, the film goes right into a send-up of Halloween and When a Stranger Calls as a dimwitted babysitter is tormented by the Breather, a killer who’s knocking off the local sexed-up teens with paper clips, egg plants, bookends, or whatever item is lying around. The plot is strictly boilerplate but makes way for the nonstop sight gags and jokes that arrive with such a quick pace that you might miss a punchline if you’re not paying attention. If you spliced together Prom Night with Airplane! you’ll get the general idea. Not all of the jokes work, but the majority of them are quite funny and the script is smart enough to take the cliches of slashers past and use them to its advantage. While not as outrageous as Kentucky Fried Movie, Student Bodies is an improvement over Saturday the 14th. B–
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