Italy and Denmark unite for a film made in the wake of Dario Argento's landmark The Bird With the Crystal Plumage. Just look -- there are crimes right in the title and some vaguely associated animal name! Actually, a black cat does kill some people in this, so the name makes sense.

Originally titled Sette Scialli di Seta Gialla (Seven Shawls of Yellow Silk),this movie was written and directed by Sergio Pastore.

Several fashion models are killed by a murderer -- think Blood and Black Lace -- by a black cat that has been alerted to them by gifted shawls laced with chemicals. Such a strange way to kill someone, but hey -- we're in the psychosexual world of the giallo, so why worry?

Paola, the first victim, had been dating Peter Oliver (Anthony Steffen, who was Django in Django the Bastard and also shows up in Play Motel and The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave),a blind composer who believes that he's heard the killer. He and his butler (Umberto Raho, Enter the Devil) are on the case, tracking the cat down to its owner, who is killed before she can reveal who has been taking care of her cat.

Much like the aforementioned -- and superior -- Bava film, Francoise (Sylva Koscina, Steve Reeves love interest in Hercules and Hercules Unchained; she's also in Bava's Lisa and the Devil) was killing the models to cover up another killing. That's because Paola was sleeping with her husband and certainly had to pay.

So yeah. The movie is a Bava retread with a lead character taken from another giallo, Bava's The Cat O'Nine Tails. And the killer's method comes from Bela Lugosi and The Devil Bat. It's still fun -- the fashions are inordinately loud, the zooms are wild and the music is out of control. There's a vicious shower kill than leaves nothing to the imagination. And it's still better than anything out there today and let's face it -- 90% of all giallo pales in comparison to masters of the form Bava and Argento.

Cats, and particularly the black-colored ones, are quite popular animals to feature in horror movies. Mainly thanks to the influence of Edgar Allen Poe's legendary writings, but also because they're sinister and mysterious animals whose actions are largely uncontrollable. Particularly the Italian horror industry used a lot of (black) cats and the story lines often try to fool us into believing these vicious animals are responsible for the ongoing terror, even though there's always – duh – a human culprit behind it. Sergio Pastore's "Crimes of the Black Cat" is a very competent Giallo, perhaps a bit standard and obviously borrowing ideas from similar efforts, but nevertheless entertaining enough to please the majority of fans of this marvelous Italian horror sub genre. What story aspects are borrowed from other Giallo-titles? Well, the victims of the maniacal killer are nearly all gorgeous models working for the same fashion house, as it was the case in Mario Bava's "Blood & Black Lace"; generally considered as THE movie that started the whole Giallo-madness in 1964. Also, the male lead – who begins to investigate the murders on his own – is blind, like Karl Malden's character in Dario Argento's "The Cat O'Nine Tails". The most important elements in Sergio Pastore's script are original however, like the modus operandi used for the killings and the large amount of red herrings & convoluted plot twists when approaching the finale. The lifeless body of a young model is found in her dressing room. She seemly died of a sudden heart attack but closer investigation shows that the claw of a cat dripped in poison caused her premature death. Since the police don't seem to be in a hurry to find the person behind this fiendish murder, the girl's former boyfriend Peter (a blind pianist) starts his own search, assisted by his loyal butler and the murdered girl's roommate. They slowly unravel a whole criminal network involving adultery, blackmail and drug-addicted circus artists. "Crimes of the Black Cat" is reasonably well paced and features a satisfying amount of action and excitement. The first 15 minutes are rather tame, but this is widely compensated by the outrageous and suspense-laden climax. The cat-claw murders aren't very spectacular, but there's a truly sadistic and stomach-churning scene near the end in which a poor girl is stabbed to death in her, "Psycho"-style in her shower. This particular murder surely belongs in the top ten grossest Giallo-moments! Unlike other contemporary Giallo-highlights, the musical score is unmemorable and there isn't that much female nudity on display. Pastore's direction and the performances of the ensemble cast are just adequate without surpassing any exceptional boundaries. "Crimes of the Black Cat" perhaps shouldn't be the first film to watch when you're new to the Giallo-sub genre, but it's definitely a good film that I warmly recommend.

Sergio Pastore's giallo outing is a skillful attempt at the genre, lacking originality but making up for this in technical proficiency, a solid mix of genre ingredients, and provoking some fine performances from the Italian cast. The typically complex plot involves blackmail schemes, a circus, a pet shop owner, drugs and an offbeat motive for the crimes which all makes sense in the crazy logic that the giallo film offers. Lots of naked female performers and some brutal murders contribute to the film's exploitation level, but it really succeeds in the story and characters which are above average and make things watchable.

Particularly good is Anthony Steffen (a spaghetti western regular, then moving into giallo/crime flicks) as the blind composer, Peter Oliver, who investigates the crimes, investing his character with both intelligence and charisma to boot. Although obviously moulded on Karl Malden's character in Argento's THE CAT O'NINE TAILS, Peter Oliver is a great lead and shows off his skills in the cat-and-mouse games of the double finale in which he manages to outwit not one but two would-be murders and save his skin. Speaking of the end, it's heavily indebted to 23 PACES TO BAKER STREET, but still suspenseful.

The supporting cast is uniformly good, in particularly Umberto Raho shining as the comedy relief butler/chauffeur who has some fine exchanges with Steffen. Then we have regular performer Giacomo Rossi-Stuart adding another shifty suspect character to his resume and the likes of Sylva Koscina, Renato De Carmine, and Shirley Corrigan literally filling out the parts of the female characters, who are more interesting and fleshed-out than the typical victimised women appearing in gialli films.

The various set-pieces are handled with skill, including a death-by-train (also from the Argento movie) and an exceptionally nasty shower murder to boot. There's even a fashion house, which appears to be closely modelled on the one in Bava's BLOOD AND BLACK LACE. Although there are a few moments of artistic excess (zooms and repeated shots in the early murders) which turn things laughable, the film mostly holds together well and is quite gripping in spots, and if not always gripping then always interesting. The black cat of the title is a mangy moggy trained to kill but is a rather underused motive; instead, jealous and twisted humans are the perpetrators of the sadistic crimes, as per usual.