Horror and Sci-Fi films old and new, weirdo trash, arthouse, forgotten gems, well loved classics, and I'm watching the original Dr Who from the beginning.
Any film with a title that great is only going to be a disappointment, and in this respect, Bruce Lee against Superman does not disappoint. It's part of an odd and crass sub genre of martial arts films cashing in on Lee's death with a similarly named star and little in the way of talent or story.
There's a half-hearted attempt at a plot, something involving a scientist who has worked out how to make food from petrol, but it feels more like a cheese induced fever dream. Bruce Li, aka Ho Tsung-Tao starts off playing a version of Cato from The Green Hornet, then seems to turn into somebody called Carter, who occasionally wears red pyjamas along with a bearded man who seems to be his boss or something. The Supermen wear black with little napkins for capes. One of them is the leader and the other two fall out with him for some reason.
While there are brief flashes of entertainingly unhinged nuttiness akin to Ed Wood or Ray Dennis Steckler (especially Rat Fink a Boo Boo) the real sin of this movie is to be mostly dull and boring.
Lucio Fulci had a long career as a director, one that covered many styles. But he is best remembered for the gore splattered horror films he made from the late 70s onwards. A Cat in the Brain presents itself as a horror version of 8 1/2, a meta reflection on this particular genre, as well as Fulci's career, and his audience.
Fulci plays a fictional version of himself, a director in the middle of shooting his latest gory effort. Not only that but "Fulci" is also convinced he is going mad, sent over the edge by years of making horror films, and that he may be responsible for a series of slayings near his house.
For such an intriguing wacky premise with so much promise, the end result is surprisingly dreary and plodding.
Much of the footage in A Cat in the Brain is culled from half a dozen films Fulci was involved in a year or two previously, although none of them have anything to do with each other.
The mismatched incoherent tone is sometimes the perfect representation of a fractured disintegrating psyche, but often makes the film look cheap and poorly thought out.
