Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place – some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.
Dario Argento’s The Black Cat is a smooth, toothsome exploration of its titular tale sprinkled with tropes from Poe’s other parables. It stars Harvey Keitel and Madeleine Potter (recently in The White Countess if you like Merchant/Ivory/Ishiguro) and is bundled with George Romero’s The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valdemar on a DVD called Two Evil Eyes, which I rented from the Dreaming Ant. Both films were shot in Pittsburgh for $9 million in 1989 and have effects by Tom Savini, but only The Black Cat (your only shot to see Pittsburgh [mostly Shadyside] through Argento’s keen eyes) is worth an hour of your life.
Tags: Dario Argento, Edgar Allen Poe, George Romero, The Black Cat, Tom Savini, Two Evil Eyes