Review of Sexy Cat

Sexy Cat (1973)
The giallo meets the fumetti (in Spain)
24 November 2007
Although existing prints of this movie look absolutely horrible, this is a very interesting film, especially considering that it came from Julio Taberno, who would go on to direct THE worst cannibal film ever "Cannibale Terror"(and that's saying A LOT). This is mostly Spanish production, but it combines two different types of then-popular Italian exploitation films--the gialli and the fumetti. The gialli should be pretty familiar to everybody; the fumetti were actually Italian comic books for adults (kind of a European forerunner to graphic novels), but they served as a basis for a number of films in the late '60's and early '70's like "Barbarella", "Diabolik", "Satanik", and "Baba Yagi-the Witch".

This film is actually centered around an entirely fictional fumetti called "Sexy Cat", which like many real fumetti at that time is being made into a movie, much to the displeasure of the original author who feels he's been cheated. Then in giallo fashion someone starts knocking off many of the people associated with the movie disguised as the "Sexy Cat" character herself come to life! I don't want to give away the ending, but it should gratify disgruntled comic book nerds everywhere.

This kind of movie kind of lacks the delirious, over-the-top style of the Italian gialli, which might be due to the hack director or simply because whatever style it does have is lost in the crappy prints. It's also much tamer than the gialli films both with regards to violence and, especially, to sex and nudity (despite the presence of no-clothes horses like Jess Franco regular Kali Hansa and Paul Naschy regular Dianik Zurakawa). The lead actress is Lone Fleming, who was in Amando Ossorio's "Tombs of the Blind Dead" that same year. But this is a very odd Euro-horror film in that it's strength is not really in its directing or its acting, but in the plot. I guess I'd recommended this to anybody (especially if it ever gets a decent DVD release), but anyone who is familiar with any of the genres or people I mentioned will probably want to check it out regardless.
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