The Black Cat
Dir. Luigi Cozzi
AKA Demons 6: De Profundis
When a horror film based on the same source material as
Dario Argento’s Suspiria and Inferno goes into production, the evil witch the
story is based upon manifests herself and not only begins to terrorise the actress set
to portray her on screen, but reveals plans to wreck havoc and bloodshed
throughout the world.
Luigi Cozzi’s The Black Cat was conceived and written by Daria Nicolodi as an unofficial
finale to Dario Argento's then still unfinished Three Mothers Trilogy, which began
with Suspiria and Inferno, and was eventually completed in 2007
with Mother of Tears. The Three Mothers’ films chart the exploits of three
ancient witches, Mater Suspiriorum (the Mother of Sighs), Mater Tenebrarum (the
Mother of Darkness) and Mater Lachrymarum (the Mother of Tears)
determined to inflict untold suffering upon the world. The Black Cat
focuses on the third mother, Mater Lachrymarum – Levana - as she attempts to
return from the dead when a screenplay based on her bloody exploits goes into
production. Filmed under the title De Profundis, ("From the
Depths") Cozzi was persuaded by American distributors to change the title
to The Black Cat with a view to releasing it as part of a series of Edgar Allan
Poe adaptations. Cozzi’s film bears no resemblance whatsoever to Poe’s short
story (though the film within the film is apparently a giallo based on it) and
the Poe series never materialised.
As a follow up to Suspiria and Inferno, The Black Cat is a strangely fascinating though ultimately flawed and schlocky work. Nicolodi's screenplay fizzles with fascinating ideas and a playful reflexivity, however Cozzi's direction fails to realise any of these ideas in a compelling way. At times it plays out as a loving homage to the work of Argento, and indeed Mario Bava and many of the classic titles of Italian horror cinema, but Cozzi exhibits none of Argento’s directorial panache, and while some of the lighting and music wouldn’t seem out of place in an Argento film, The Black Cat is flat and awkwardly constructed. You must admit though, as cinematic oddities go, the premise is an irresistible one: wrapping up Argento’s supernatural horror trilogy with a film about horror films could have resulted in a delicious deconstruction of not only Argento’s body of work, but of Italian horror cinema in general. Sadly, this is not the case, as The Black Cat takes Nicolodi's fascinating concept and then proceeds to piss all over it with weak direction, ropey acting, awful dubbing and laser beams.
Kicking off with dire Eighties rock music that’s more Demons
than Suspiria, The Black Cat opens as a woman with a gun ventures into a
moodily lit building to confront a killer. These moments are drenched in lurid,
Inferno-esque lighting (gaudy yellows and livid reds) and conjure memories of Argento’s work; though it immediately
becomes obvious, Cozzi possesses none of Argento’s flair. Expectations
are surprisingly confounded however, when this is revealed to be a scene in a
giallo movie production, complete with a killer decked out in fedora, black
leather gloves and long trench coat. He even sports a blank white mask a la the
killer in Bava’s Blood and Black Lace. Eagle-eyed viewers will spot Italian
horror stalwart Michele Soavi as the film director with a keenness for blood,
and some interesting dialogue ensues about his preoccupation with
gore and violence at the expense of his actors’ performances - gee, I wonder
who they could be talking about.
“That man is no director, he’s a butcher. All he wants is
blood, blood and more blood.”
We’re soon introduced to another director, Marc (Urbano Barberini), who discusses his new Three Mothers project with his wife Anne (Florence Guérin), who is set to play the main part, and he despairs at his reputation as the “king of spaghetti thrillers.” Their dialogue is intercut with shots of an ancient, red-lit tomb as something stirs and emerges from its crypt. Later, when Marc and Anne invite the new project’s writer and his wife Nora (Caroline Munro), an actress who wants to play Levana, to dinner, they discuss the work of Argento and how their film will become the closing chapter to his Three Mother’s trilogy. This scene could have been a sly, humorous and insightful discussion about Argento’s impact on horror cinema. It isn’t. While they do discuss the background of Suspiria, the figures of the Three Mothers and what makes them such compelling subjects, it could have been handled better. What should have been a tantalising deconstruction and reflexive critique of Italian horror just comes across as clunky. Even so, to hear characters in a film discussing Suspiria and Dario Argento is, on a purely geeky level, really cool.
Much later, when Marc and his writer approach a professor of
mysticism and the occult to act as consultant on the film, we get back to
Argento/Suspiria territory as she confirms the source material of Argento’s
earlier films is actually not based on the work of Baudelaire “the poet of the dammed”, as Marc
incorrectly stated; but English writer Thomas De Quincey’s hallucinatory text
Suspiria de Profundis (part of his Confessions of an English Opium
Eater). She claims De Quincy merely translated an earlier text, a chronicle
about the most evil witch that ever lived – Levana. As she consults a dusty
tome, Goblin’s music from Suspiria plays on the soundtrack and she reveals that Levana
can apparently take over the body of anyone who focuses their concentration on her enough. The
film is peppered with shots of planets and stars as Cozzi’s camera floats
through space and we catch a glimpse of what appears to be an astral foetus
(rather akin to Space Odyssey’s Star Child, but on a lower budget), and there’s some talk about Levana
needing to possess a woman born under a certain constellation of stars in order
to carry out her dark deeds. If she is reincarnated as a man however, she needs
to sacrifice a newborn baby in order to carry out her revenge on
the ancestors of those who burned her at the stake.
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| Cozzi's tacky incarnation of the Mother of Tears |
The appearance of Levana in Cozzi's film contradicts what we know of her from Argento's films. Described in Suspiria and Inferno as the cruellest, but also the most beautiful of the Three Mothers, she appears in The Black Cat as a hideously deformed old crone with glowing red eyes. The make-up is laughably shoddy and she would have been much more effective and creepy had Cozzi relegated her firmly to the shadows. At times we only see close-up shots of her eyes, and these are more successful in conveying her mystery and otherworldly menace; if only Cozzi had stuck to revealing her in such subtle ways. There are actually a number of fascinating similarities between her various guises in The Black Cat and Argento’s Mother of Tears, particularly the moment when Anne reads her husband's script (as Goblin's theme from Suspiria tinkles ominously in the background) and dons a veil to help her get into character. Anne's appearance is briefly very similar to how Levana looks in Argento’s Mother of Tears where she was introduced very gradually, beginning with mere glimpses; a curled lip here, a glaring eye there, and she wears a dark veil concealing her face. I’m not suggesting that Cozzi’s vision of Mater Lachrymarum had any influence on Argento, but here are a few images to illustrate my point.
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| Anne dons a 'veil of crepe' in The Black Cat |
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| A teasing glimpse of Mater Lachrymarum in Argento's Mother of Tears |
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| Levana possesses Anne in The Black Cat |
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| Mater Lachrymarum has similar eye make-up in Mother of Tears |
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| Steele - resembling Argento's version of Mater Lachrymarum - in Mario Caiano's darkly gothic Nightmare Castle. |
Another interesting similarity between The Black Cat and
Mother of Tears is the appearance of a spectral girl who reveals to Anne that
she has the power to stop Levana but must delve deep within herself to find her
latent powers. A similar spectral agent appears in Mother of Tears in the form
of Sarah’s mother (Daria Nicolodi) who acts as a guide and mentor. The girl in The Black Cat is
called Sybil and is revealed to be a fairy. Her ethereal appearance is usually signalled
by pulsating green light, and she reveals herself to Anne through a TV
set. Aside from these moments, and Anne’s final utterance of “will we all live happily ever
after?”, The Black Cat lacks the allusions
to fairy tales that were rife throughout Suspiria and Inferno, both of which unfurled as devastatingly violent, dark and
feverishly adult fairy tale narratives in which characters wandered through
imposing spaces seeking crumbs of truth while attempts were made on their lives
by evil witches. The only aspect of The Black Cat that feels
like a fairy tale is the inclusion of an actual fairy to guide Anne through her dark times (and even
this is ludicrous).
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| Sybil, the 'good fairy' in The Black Cat |
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| Sarah's spectral mother in Mother of Tears |
A number of scenes, if handled properly, could have been immensely unsettling. The scene where Levana emerges from a mirror to attack
Anne for instance, could have been incredibly creepy, and perhaps even formed a reference to
Inferno and the scene in that film when the Mother of Darkness bursts through a
large mirror. Instead it is crass, lacking in tension.
Levana merely throws herself on Anne and screams that they will never show her face on the screen and then pukes
green slime all over her. Another scene that could have been creepy and atmospheric is
the one in which Anne is wandering through her house following an eerily glowing light as she is
beckoned by the rasping tones of Levana. The vivid lighting renders her home an otherworldly place where danger lurks in every shadow. Unfortunately, the scene culminates with Anne
discovering a strange mist cascading out of her fridge! What's that all about?! Is Levana hiding in the fridge?
The conversation between Anne and Marc about the broken mirror evokes the scene in Suspiria where Dr Mandel and Suzy chat about connections between the belief in the supernatural and the occult, and mental illness. Anne claims the mirror was broken into a million pieces when Levana burst through it to attack her; while Marc insists that she’s just imagining things as she’s so stressed and tired. Broken mirrors, broken minds. A few other mildly interesting moments occur that distort the line between dreams and reality, but far from being used to explore Anne’s increasingly fraught mindset, they just appear as means to further on the ever-convoluted plot. It would have been interesting to apply the same reality/dream distortions to The Black Cat as say, those utilised in Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, and to tease out a similar exploration of the effect of horror cinema on its audience, and indeed those involved in the production of horror films. When Marc and his writer meet with their potential producer, wheelchair-bound tycoon, Levin (a reference to Varelli in Inferno?), their conversation boasts a throwaway line that, if explored more thoroughly, could have been quite interesting and maybe opened up a ‘cursed movie’ narrative akin to John Carpenter’s Cigarette Burns or David Lynch’s Inland Empire. Levin says he has a feeling that when distributors hear about their Three Mothers project, they’ll be “cutting each other’s throats to get their hands on the film.” What might have also been quite interesting would have been the revelation that the film studio they planned to use was actually one of the three cursed dwelling places designed by sinister architect Varelli for the Three Mothers to reside in. Something like this would have helped enhance the link to Suspiria and Inferno, both of which also featured cursed buildings in which an evil witch dwelt.
The conversation between Anne and Marc about the broken mirror evokes the scene in Suspiria where Dr Mandel and Suzy chat about connections between the belief in the supernatural and the occult, and mental illness. Anne claims the mirror was broken into a million pieces when Levana burst through it to attack her; while Marc insists that she’s just imagining things as she’s so stressed and tired. Broken mirrors, broken minds. A few other mildly interesting moments occur that distort the line between dreams and reality, but far from being used to explore Anne’s increasingly fraught mindset, they just appear as means to further on the ever-convoluted plot. It would have been interesting to apply the same reality/dream distortions to The Black Cat as say, those utilised in Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, and to tease out a similar exploration of the effect of horror cinema on its audience, and indeed those involved in the production of horror films. When Marc and his writer meet with their potential producer, wheelchair-bound tycoon, Levin (a reference to Varelli in Inferno?), their conversation boasts a throwaway line that, if explored more thoroughly, could have been quite interesting and maybe opened up a ‘cursed movie’ narrative akin to John Carpenter’s Cigarette Burns or David Lynch’s Inland Empire. Levin says he has a feeling that when distributors hear about their Three Mothers project, they’ll be “cutting each other’s throats to get their hands on the film.” What might have also been quite interesting would have been the revelation that the film studio they planned to use was actually one of the three cursed dwelling places designed by sinister architect Varelli for the Three Mothers to reside in. Something like this would have helped enhance the link to Suspiria and Inferno, both of which also featured cursed buildings in which an evil witch dwelt.
In issue 35 of Fangoria, Nicolodi and Argento claimed they had finished the script for the third Three Mothers film. Nicolodi mentioned her version of the script again in an interview for Alan Jones' book, Profondo Argento: The Man, the Myths and the Magic. It would be fascinating to see how different these scripts were and how they evolved and changed over the years and if they had any influence on Nicolodi when she was writing The Black Cat.
As mentioned, Cozzi has absolutely none of Argento’s
directorial flair – at times he is successful in evoking an Argento-esque
atmosphere; the stylised lighting and music consisting of glaring rock and
creepy music box lullabies: but The Black Cat more frequently boasts the feel
of a tacky Demons movie rather than the eerie and darkly resplendent tones of Suspiria
and Inferno. Why it was released as Demons 6, I have no idea. Then again,
Michele Soavi’s The Church and The Sect were released as instalments of the Demons movie
‘franchise.’ The Poe connection is tenuously alluded to in the scene where
Marc and his writer discuss Anne’s increasing nervousness about her current
role in an adaptation of Poe’s short story and her forthcoming role as Levana.
The writer quotes from Poe’s tale: “my wife, who at heart was not a little
tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular
notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise." To hammer
this home, and connect it to Argento’s Three Mothers’ Mythos, myriad shots of
black cats are inserted throughout the narrative.
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| Really, Luigi? LASER BEAMS?? |
This is a tragically flawed yet strangely
fascinating film (for Argento fans anyway), that could have been an 8 ½ or Wes
Craven’s New Nightmare of Italian horror cinema. It’s worth seeking out,
though very hard to come by. It was never officially released on
DVD, and it seems the only copies floating around have been ripped from a Japanese VHS
(complete with subtitles). You can watch it on YouTube though, and thanks so much to Terence for the link! I for one hope that maybe one
day it will find a release through the likes of Shameless or Arrowdrome. While The Black Cat may be the illegitimate runt of the Three Mothers' litter, complete with many flaws and shortcomings, Cozzi’s attempts at a meta-giallo still offer schlocky fun. It was also interesting to see where Nicolodi wanted to take the Three Mothers story.
