A Cat in the Brain

A Cat in the Brain
Italian theatrical release poster by Enzo Sciotti
Directed by	Lucio Fulci
Produced by	Antonio Lucidi Luigi Nannerini
Screenplay by	Lucio Fulci Giovanni Simonelli Antonio Tentori
Story by	Lucio Fulci Giovanni Simonelli
Starring	Lucio Fulci Brett Halsey Jeoffrey Kennedy Malisa Longo Ria De Simone Sacha Darwin
Music by	Fabio Frizzi
Cinematography	Alessandro Grossi
Edited by	Vincenzo Tomassi
Production company	Exclusive Cine TV
Distributed by	Grindhouse Releasing
Release date	8 August 1990
Running time	87 minutes 93 minutes (US)
Country	Italy
Language	Italian
Budget	$100,000 (U.S.)

A Cat in the Brain (Italian: Un gatto nel cervello; also known as Nightmare Concert and I volti del terrore) is a 1990 Italian horror film written and directed by the "Italian godfather of gore" Lucio Fulci.A Cat in the Brain is one of Lucio Fulci's final films and is notable for self-reflexively summing up his career. The film is a meta-film in which the director appears playing himself, a tortured horror filmmaker who is driven by the violent visions that he experiences both behind the camera and off the set. Feeling like he's losing his grip on reality and disturbed by murderous fantasies, Fulci consults a psychotherapist. The "shrink" exploits the director's vulnerabilities to his own murderous ends.A Cat in the Brain has been called the horror film equivalent of Federico Fellini's 8½, using cynical, Grand Guignol humour. Juxtaposing gory horror clips from several of his own past horror films which he either directed and/or produced, Lucio Fulci shot a wrap-around segment featuring his own plot and used Vincenzo Tomassi's film editing (as well as his own voice over) to create the storyline – a personal insight into the effects of horror filmmaking on the psyche.

Haunted by his own bloody horror film visions and with news of real life murders happening in Rome, splatter film director Lucio Fulci (playing himself) seeks the advice of a psychiatrist.

Dr. Lucio Fulci (more or less playing himself) is a former medical doctor-turned director of gory horror films. He wraps up shooting for the day on his latest film 'Touch of Death' with Brett Halsey playing the human monster/cannibal of women. Fulci leaves the Cinecittà Studios for a local restaurant down the street. A young friendly waiter recognizes him and suggests his typical meal: a fillet of steak, or steak tarter. Fulci cannot look at the sample plates of meat without having flashbacks to the cannibalistic scene he'd been filming earlier. Shaken, he leaves the restaurant without ordering a meal. Later, while checking an effects shot from another movie, Fulci irritably snaps at a technician to get a plate of animal eyeballs out of his sight.

Returning home to his row house in an old suburb of Rome, the troubled director tries to sleep, but the noise of a handyman's chainsaw outside keeps him awake with recollections of his own recently shot chainsaw mayhem. In a rage, Fulci storms outside and smashes a hatchet into cans of paint belonging to the handyman. The spilled red paint reminds Fulci of the acid/blood scene in 'The Beyond'.