PRIME EVIL: CRIMES OF THE BLACK CAT (1972) ***

The beauty of the sheer amount of shit on Amazon Prime is that the most innocuous looking movies turn out to be loaded with full-fledged lunacy.  Case in point is Crimes of the Black Cat.  I probably would’ve never even heard of this flick if it wasn’t for Amazon Prime.  It just popped up under the “Customers Also Watched” heading.  On a whim, I decided to watch it because, what the hell, right?  I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting this.

Anthony Steffan stars as a blind piano player who overhears a conversation in a crowded bar.  He thinks they’re talking about a murder plot but can’t be sure because of the racket coming from the juke box.  People around him start dying and he comes to suspect a mysterious woman in a white cloak is responsible for it all.

Crimes of the Black Cat would make a great double feature with The Cat O’ Nine Tails.  Both films are Italian giallos with blind protagonists and contain the word “Cat” in the title.  It has a clever set-up, an outrageous hook (the murders are mostly performed by a cat with poisoned claws), and a healthy amount of gratuitous T & A.  The finale might be my favorite part.  It starts off at an eleven on the crazy meter and then escalates wildly from there, only to finish off at one of the most perplexing freeze frame endings of all time.  Said another way, it’s awesome.  

There’s also a good mix of tongue-in-cheek humor and unintentional laughs.  The scene where our blind hero accidentally stumbles upon a corpse is amusing and the silly plot twists will ensure you’ll be grinning like the cat who ate the canary.  The hilarious cat attacks will have you in stitches.  (It looks like a PA took a plastic cat with glowing eyes and hurled it repeatedly at the camera.)  We also get an occasional scene that the distributor forgot to dub into English.  Since one of those scenes involves a topless model yelling at her photographer, I’ll let it slide.

The gore is pretty good for the time.  There are throat slashings, a decapitated cat, and a gnarly Psycho-inspired shower scene where a woman’s boob is slashed apart by a straight razor.  The make-up in the finale is also quite well done.

It’s almost a given that Crimes of the Black Cat is uneven as hell.  Luckily, there’s enough jaw-dropping insanity here to help you get over the lulls.  Even if you find yourself getting restless, hang in there because the last five minutes is an absolute riot.

AKA:  Crimes.  AKA:  Seven Shawls of Yellow Silk.  

You can watch Crimes of the Black Cat for free on Amazon Prime here:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MRWY1WN?ref_=imdbref_tt_wbr_piv&tag=imdbtag_tt_wbr_piv-20