The Black Cat is a wittily self-ironising affair, mixing and matching its incongruous parts to produce something thoroughly Poe-stmodern.

| Apr 5, 2021

Wildly expressionistic, the movie has nothing to do with the Poe story from which it takes its title and everything to do with Ulmer's sense of the Nazi menace.

| Oct 20, 2016

A dismal hocus-pocus which seems to confuse its actors as much as it fails to frighten its audience.

| Oct 19, 2008

Story is confused and confusing, and while with the aid of heavily-shadowed lighting and mausoleum-like architecture, a certain eeriness has been achieved, it's all a poor imitation of things seen before.

| Sep 26, 2007

Ulmer never again had the budgetary resources granted him by Universal (at the time, Karloff and Lugosi were two of the studio's biggest stars), and he makes the most of them.

| Sep 26, 2007

More foolish than horrible. The story and dialogue pile the agony on too thick to give the audience a reasonable scare.

| Aug 8, 2006

Sumptuously subversive... one of the very best horror movies Universal ever made.

| Feb 9, 2006

The Black Cat's impressionist wasteland is composed of equal parts severe allegory and pulp poetry.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 29, 2004