Critical Reception and Impact
The film was well received by critics and the public. On the movie review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, the film received an average rating from critics of 85%. The film was also ranked #68 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments for its "skinning" scene. The critic Philip French has called it "the first (and best) of seven Karloff/Lugosi joint appearances. The movie unfolds like a nightmare that involves necrophilia, ailurophobia, drugs, a deadly game of chess, torture, flaying, and a black mass with a human sacrifice. This bizarre, utterly irrational masterpiece, lasting little more than an hour, has images that bury themselves in the mind."
Clips from The Black Cat appear in the 1968 film Head, starring musical group The Monkees. The soundtrack album includes a clip called "Superstitious", consisting of the following lines:
- David Manners: "Sounds like a lot of supernatural baloney to me."
- Bela Lugosi: "Supernatural, perhaps; baloney, perhaps not."
Read more about this topic: The Black Cat (1934 Film)
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