ShangLuda Admirable film.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

phanthinga I read the quick summary of Black Cat on wikipedia after watching the episode "The Black Cat" from Masters of Horror series and it was one hell of of a story and one hell of a movie when it got all the right ingredients of a creepy story on chop with the runtime about less than an hour.Masterful directed by Stuart Gordon plus his partner in crime Jeffrey Combs as Edgar Allan Poe himself will forever be my definition of Poe on cinema

Smoreni Zmaj Stuart Gordon, to horror fans known for adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft (Re-Animator, From Beyond, Castle Freak, Dagon, and second episode of this show), this time goes for adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat". This episode is very faithful to both the original material and the real life of the famous writer, and it is a real refresh in a series that has become quite monotonous. The film follows Poe trying to write a new story, while at the same time cares about his wife suffering from tuberculosis and struggles with poverty and alcoholism. The story is chaotic and confusing, but very atmospheric, and Jeffrey Combs perfectly plays the role of an alcoholic who sinks deeper and deeper into madness. Sepia colors greatly contribute to the dark atmosphere. The only thing standing out from sepia is color of blood and it makes gore scenes extremely striking. The piano scene is perhaps the best I've seen in this series. Together with the adaptation of "Dreams in the Witch-House" by H.P. Lovecraft, also directed by Stuart Gordon, "The Black Cat" is, in my opinion, the highlight of "Masters of Horror" and makes Stuart Gordon the most successful director of the series.8/10

Bjorn (ODDBear) Well, one more version of "The Black Cat". Let's see...Dario Argento has done it, Lucio Fulci has done it, Sergio Martino has done it and that's the ones I can think of right now. Others have adapted "The Black Cat" as well. But I'll be damned if this isn't the finest version I've seen so far.The aforementioned directors put a different spin on the story and that's the case here as well. The original story's writer, Edgar A. Poe, is the central character. Not only do you get the important elements from "The Black Cat", you also get a glimpse of the author's life as well. Poe, living in poverty with his sick wife, succumbs to drinking and fearing he may have lost the talent to write. But salvation appears in the form of that fateful black cat.We're used to seeing Stuart Gordon (and Jeffrey Combs, for that matter) in H.P. Lovecraft territory and those collaborations resulted in the gruesome twosome "Re-Animator" and "From Beyond", both excellent horror films. Gordon is no less skillful in adapting Poe to the screen and his "Black Cat" is a superb combination of tragedy and gruesome horror.The love story between Poe and his wife is wonderfully handled and the gruesome bits are masterfully executed as well, no small feat to achieve. This is also thanks to a wonderful central performance by Jeffrey Combs who's had a nearly flawless career in horror movies.The sets are great and the scenery wonderfully atmospheric. This is one of the best "Masters of Horror" episodes.Highly recommended.

Paul Andrews Masters of Horror: The Black Cat starts as the broke Edgar Allan Poe (Jeffrey Combs) tries to sell some poetry to his publisher George Graham (no not the Arsenal football club legend!) but he thinks Poe should get back to writing what he writes best, fantastical stories of horror. Poe disagrees & continues to squander his money on drink, however his priorities have to chance when his wife Virginia (Elyse Levesque) becomes seriously ill & he has to find money for her medicine. As Poe sit down to write the sort of story Graham (Aron Tager) wants his wife's black cat Pluto seems to haunting him & driving him mad...This Canadian American co-production was episode 11 from season 2 of the hit-and-miss Masters of Horror TV series, the second Masters of Horror story to be directed by Stuart Gordon I was deeply disappointed by The Black Cat. The script by Gordon & Stuart Paoli feels more like an autobiographical character study rather than horror for the first 40 odd minutes before it finally gets going during it's last quarter. As a lover of the horror genre myself I should be fascinated with this episode which bases it's central premise around Edgar Allan Poe who was responsible for the source material & ideas for a lot of genre films but to be honest I couldn't give a toss about him, I haven't got a clue whether this is an accurate representation of him & what he was like & frankly I couldn't care less either way. So straight away I've got a problem with it, then there's the fact that the majority of the time Poe is painted as some drunk, aggressive, rude, lying brute who I really disliked & that made it very difficult for me to care about anything which was going on. Then there's the clichéd lame cop-out ending which destroy just about everything that has gone before although I admit I didn't see it coming mainly because I thought the likes of Gordon was better than it. I was pretty bored during the opening half but at least things pick up towards the end, it's well written enough I suppose & I can see how some might be drawn in & like it but it didn't do much for me.Director Gordon does a fine job, this one looks good with great period sets & detail as it was set in the first half of the 19th Century (Poe himself lived between 1809 & 1849). Almost all the colour has been removed & this isn't too far away from being black and white apart from the brilliant creative decision to emphasise all the reds, from the bright red wine to the predictable spurts & splatterings of bright red blood, it's a nice touch which works very well & gives The Black Cat a bit of style. There's not much gore here although there is one big special effect when someone gets an axe stuck in their head in a great scene with plenty of blood, a cat has it's eye poked out, someone coughs up loads of blood & animal lovers should beware a few critters bite the dust so bear that in mind. This one lacks any great scares & there are only a couple of horror themed sequences throughout.Technically The Black Cat is excellent with great production values & it's very well made with a convincingly realised & authentic looking period setting. The acting is good although while I've liked Combs in just about everything I've seen in him I thought he was a bit bland & unlikable in this.The Black Cat certainly isn't a Masters of Horror I will look back on with any great fondness, I'm sorry but it's as simple & straight forward as that. Another week, another Masters of Horror episode, another disappointment.