The Black Cat is a 1981

1981 in film

-Events:*January 19 - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquires beleaguered concurrent United Artists. UA was humiliated by the astronomical losses on the $40,000,000 movie Heaven's Gate, a major factor in the decision of owner Transamerica to sell it....

 Italian

Cinema of Italy

The history of Italian cinema began just a few months after the Lumière brothers had patented their Cinematographe, when Pope Leo XIII was filmed for a few seconds in the act of blessing the camera.-Early years:...

 horror film

Horror film

Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...

 directed by Lucio Fulci

Lucio Fulci

Lucio Fulci was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is perhaps best known for his directorial work on gore films, including Zombie and The Beyond , although he made films in genres as diverse as giallo, western, and comedy...

, using his usual violent style. The film is based loosely on the story of the same name

The Black Cat (short story)

"The Black Cat" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. It was first published in the August 19, 1843, edition of The Saturday Evening Post. It is a study of the psychology of guilt, often paired in analysis with Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart"...

 by Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...

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Plot

The film is about a detective who investigates the recent deaths of many in a small village. He sees they lead to a psychic professor who turns the spirits into his cat, which he uses to cause harm to others.

Cast

• Patrick Magee
  Patrick Magee (actor)
  Patrick Magee was a Northern Irish actor best known for his collaborations with Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, as well as his appearances in horror films and in Stanley Kubrick's films A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon.-Early life:He was born Patrick McGee in Armagh, County Armagh, Northern...
  
  
• Mimsy Farmer
  Mimsy Farmer
  Mimsy Farmer is an American actress. Her nickname came from a line in Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky; "All mimsy were the borogoves".-Career:...
  
  
• David Warbeck
  David Warbeck
  David Warbeck was a New Zealand actor best known for his film roles in Europe.-Career and move into Italian cinema:...
  
  
• Al Cliver
  Al Cliver
  Al Cliver is an Italian actor who is perhaps best known for starring in horror and exploitation films, especially ones by directors Lucio Fulci and Jesús Franco.-Career:...
  
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Release

The film was given a limited release

Limited release

Limited release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing in a select few theaters across the country ....

 theatrically in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 by World Northal in February 1984.

The film has been released on DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 in America by Anchor Bay Entertainment

Anchor Bay Entertainment

Anchor Bay Entertainment is a U.S. based home entertainment and production company and is a division of Starz Media, which is a unit of Starz, LLC. It was previously owned by IDT Entertainment until 2006 when IDT was purchased by Starz Media. Anchor Bay markets and sells feature films, series,...

 and Blue Underground

Blue Underground

Blue Underground is an American company specializing in releasing authoritative editions of cult and exploitation movies on Blu-ray Disc and DVD....

, and in the UK by Salvation Films and Shameless Screen Entertainment

Shameless Screen Entertainment

Shameless Screen Entertainment is a British DVD label specialising in exploitation films.The label launched on 1 October 2007; the launch was announced in August that year.-Releases:...

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