I'm friggin' floored everytime i revisit this thriller. To me it's the best of the three early giallos and can't for the life of me see why it gets the cold shoulder from Argento.
It takes me back to a simpler time before the baroque horror films that made him a household name amoungst genre fans, and also created a style that sadly he has become a caricature of.
The film is not high art in any dramatic sense, but the combination of naturalistic lighting, expressive povs, and hard noirish shadows make it a true oddity in his cannon.
He sets the perfect stage for the actors without becoming burdened with auteurist motives. Showing restraint and letting the story build suspense naturally as we meet a bevy of red herrings from the underbelly of the institute. Malden and Franciscus are supurb and the relationship between Franco and Lori is touching.
Add a diverse score from the prolific and brillant Morricone that manages to cover discord, funky bass riffs, and poetically resonant winds; and you have have a deliberately paced psycho sexual thriller that like "Bird" owes more to Frederic Brown mysteries than Hitchcock, although the influence in certainly there.
Not my favorite Argento, that would be DEEP RED; but CAT is a fascinating and at times liberating journey that's not as confrontational, or excessive, but worth the ride.
It takes me back to a simpler time before the baroque horror films that made him a household name amoungst genre fans, and also created a style that sadly he has become a caricature of.
The film is not high art in any dramatic sense, but the combination of naturalistic lighting, expressive povs, and hard noirish shadows make it a true oddity in his cannon.
He sets the perfect stage for the actors without becoming burdened with auteurist motives. Showing restraint and letting the story build suspense naturally as we meet a bevy of red herrings from the underbelly of the institute. Malden and Franciscus are supurb and the relationship between Franco and Lori is touching.
Add a diverse score from the prolific and brillant Morricone that manages to cover discord, funky bass riffs, and poetically resonant winds; and you have have a deliberately paced psycho sexual thriller that like "Bird" owes more to Frederic Brown mysteries than Hitchcock, although the influence in certainly there.
Not my favorite Argento, that would be DEEP RED; but CAT is a fascinating and at times liberating journey that's not as confrontational, or excessive, but worth the ride.
