THE BLACK CAT

Writer Edgar Allan Poe lives in a very precarious economic situation, is a slave to alcohol, and his young wife is suffering from tuberculosis. To pay for her treatment, Poe neglects his poetic compositions, not very commercial, and at the request of his publisher, he dedicates himself to writing a new fantastic story, but he cannot find inspiration until Pluto, his wife's mischievous cat, provides him with several disturbing ideas. "Masters of Horror" is a unique project born from the mind of Mick Garris, a director known in the horror field, especially for the adaptations of Stephen King's novels. Garris thought of bringing together the most representative horror film directors in a project destined for cable TV Showtime and home video; the result is "Masters of Horror," a series of 13 short films, each 60 minutes long, each directed by a major name in the genre; each episode has a budget of $1.8 million, the location set in the Canadian city of Vancouver, and total creative freedom was granted to each director. The names involved in the second season of this project are: Tobe Hooper, Dario Argento, Stuart Gordon, Joe Dante, John Carpenter, John Landis, Ernest Dickerson, Brand Anderson, Tom Holland, Peter Medak, Rob Schmidt, Norio Tsuruta, and Mick Garris himself. Episode 11 of the second season of "Masters of Horror" and a return to directing the TV series for Stuart Gordon, who had previously worked on the fluctuating "House of the Witches" in the previous season. From Lovecraft in the first series, Gordon moves on to Poe and decides to take a rather original approach to the famous American writer: instead of taking one of his many works and adapting it to the screen, he decides to make the author himself the protagonist of the story and recount his nightmares and torments through a biographical fictionalized episode. This choice immediately seems successful, and for a good half of the short film, the premise holds up well, although it eventually conforms to paths already explored as the minutes progress. Probably convinced that fifty minutes of footage focused on the "secret" life of Poe were not very interesting, Gordon and co-screenwriter Dennis Paoli suddenly, and somewhat gratuitously, shift to the long-awaited adaptation of one of his stories, which had been carefully avoided until that moment, and, to justify the title, the film turns into yet another unnecessary film adaptation of "The Black Cat," probably the most exploited story in cinema by the American writer. The innovation, if we want to call it that, introduced by Gordon's short film is to provide a semi-realistic background to the creation of "The Black Cat," only the whole thing remains very, too superficial, in the end almost unreal and especially unconvincing. Dream, hallucination, supernatural intervention? The viewer is only asked to make a great effort to suspend disbelief and enjoy the show by closing one eye here and there. Jeffrey Combs, always a "favorite" actor of Gordon's, plays Edgar Allan Poe here and does so excellently, giving us probably one of the best performances of his career; a bit underwhelming, however, is Elyse Levesque (the TV series "Smallville") in the role of the cousin/wife of the writer. The cinematography by Jon Joffin appears to be of good quality, always tinted in sepia tones, as if to give an "antique" connotation to the entire film. The special effects by the KNB team are also good as usual, this time particularly focused on the "cruelty" towards animals. In conclusion, "The Black Cat" leaves a bit of a bitter taste in the mouth, especially because there is the feeling that Gordon "wasted" a good starting idea to fall back on the conformity of already well-tested twists, but at the same time "The Black Cat" carries an aura of charm given by the originality of the premise and above all by Combs' convincing and heartfelt performance. Satisfactory.