Original Title: Il tuo vizio è una stanza chiusa e solo io ne ho la chiave
Directed by: Sergio Martino
This review contains a severe Kitty Carnage Warnings!
Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains spoilers for this film!
Synopsis: A loose adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s story The Black Cat. Oliviero (Luigi Pistilli) is a sadistic, unproductive writer obsessed with the memory of his deceased mother and her ornate dress.
Featured Feline: Oliviero lives in a dilapidated mansion with his wife Irina (Anita Strindberg), their maid Brenda (Angela La Vorgna) and a longhair black cat named Satan who used to belong to his mother.
A painting of Oliviero’s mother in her dress with Satan is a main feature of the home.
During an orgy in which Oliviero invites a group of local hippies in for some debauchery, Satan seeks Oliviero’s lap.
The cat frightens Irina, who is abused and humiliated by Oliviero in front of the guests. To get back at him, Irina puts on his mother’s dress, infuriating Oliviero.
Irina owns doves which Satan enjoys stalking. Actually the poor cat actor seems largely distressed, panting outside the coop.
Kitty Carnage Warning! And no wonder when Irina takes a broom to the poor cat, shooing him away from her precious birds. This is not done gently, either. She swears she is going to kill Satan one day.
Authorities suspect Oliviero in the murder of his mistress. Satan is present throughout the film, watching the proceedings in the house.
Oliviero continues to obsess over the painting and even turns the hippies away.
One night Brenda hears Satan meowing. She goes to investigate and finds the dress. After putting the dress on, she is murdered by an unseen assailant. Irina finds her and is shocked, especially to see Satan near a pool of blood.
Irina and Oliviero hide Brenda’s body inside the wall of the cellar as Satan watches. Oliverio tells Irina to wash the dress, as he refuses to bury it with Brenda’s body.
The arrival of Oliviero’s niece Floriana (Edwige Fenech) further complicates issues. She is not afraid of Satan.
Finding out that Irina had the dress sent out to by dry cleaned, Oliverio locks her in a closet where Satan attacks her.
Kitty Carnage Warning! Later Irina finds out that Satan killed some of her doves. She attacks the cat and stabs him in one eye.
Eventually Irina kills Oliverio and hides his body in the cellar. She continues to be haunted by Satan.
When the police show up at the end, they hear the sound of the cat inside the cellar wall and break it open, finding the body of Oliviero alongside Satan.
The overly convoluted plot adds nothing to Poe’s original story, although the scenes with the cat do follow the original narrative more closely.
Final Mewsings: If cat actors could read Poe they would never agree to play the lead in these movies.
Many thanks to Yayoi Neko and Wahrhaftig for letting us know about the cat in this film.
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