One day a pretty photographer named Jill Trevers (played by Mimsy Farmer) takes a job working in conjunction with the local police (headed up by two notable Eurocult leading men, David Warbeck and Al Cliver). It seems that there have been quite a few murders in the area as of late and as she goes around taking her pictures of the victims for the police records, she notices that many of them bare some obvious scratch marks on them – scratch marks that could have come from… a large cat! Trevers heads over to Miles' humble abode to question him, police in tow, but things of course do not go easily or even remotely as planned and the cat is still prowling around, up to no good.

If there's one word that can be aptly used to describe this very, very, very loose Edgar Allen Poe adaptation from the proclaimed Italian master of splatter Lucio Fulci, it's goofy. Patrick Magee overacts with such wreckless, scenery chewing abandon that at times his performance also seems to be intentionally comedic. The fact that he's surrounded by numerous Italian actors trying to pretend they are English, with middling results, and the sole American in the film (Farmer) to make it more marketable to North American audiences simply adds to the rampant confusion that so dominates this film.

Those expecting injury to the eye motifs, gut munching zombies or shotgun blasts to the head (the type of material that is more often than not associated with the late, great Lucio) would do well to check out Zombie, Contraband or The Beyond instead as The Black Cat is an almost completely gore-less affair. However, if you're into films with lots of atmosphere (which this one has) and don't mind logic jumps that could fill the Grand Canyon (which this one also has) and you can appreciate the antics of Mr. Magee the psychic professor, there's a lot to enjoy in this uniquely Fulci-esque psuedo-gothic mess of a film.