lucio fulci be one of the most prolific italian director by the time of his death in 1996 and yet his career have long since descend into a downward spiral of increasingly futile genre entry that could barely stand in the shadow of his early work . for much of the 70 into the mid 80 and he crank out such stylistically distinctive horror a city of the living dead and the beyond and and the brutal giallo the new york ripper and fondly remember by fan like myself . and while cat in the brain fall in with the era of fulci decline a a filmmaker and it be a shocking and darkly hilarious headtrip that and while a clearly inferior work ( the framing and effect and and act be below par ) and prove an interesting and open end meditation on pop psychology and film ability to desensitize . make no mistake represent cat in the brain be a total gorefest and and as disjoint a fulci previous film and but it deserve credit for try to be something more . in a deliciously tongue in cheek touch and fulci play himself represent a director in the midst of film yet another violent horror flick who come down with perverse or murderous hallucination while after visit a shrink who put him under hypnosis and his dream and reality begin to intersect and to the point where the viewer can not discern the two . the recent dvd from grindhouse release mention cat a an heir apparent to the like of eraserhead and and it do carry a similarly disquieting and awkwardly funny quality associate with the best surrealist art .