True to its title, Cat in the Brain opens with close-up footage of a cat (puppet) wolfing down on (obviously fake) bloody brain matter. And we would expect nothing less from Italian gore king Lucio Fulci. When someone who hates horror movies asks, “What kind of sick mind would make such a thing?,” now you can answer, “Well, this guy.”

The film certainly pokes fun at his image, as Fulci more or less plays himself, a middle-aged bearded man who wears sweaters over shirt and tie, wears glasses and makes really sick flicks where the gallons of spilled blood look like someone bought red paint in bulk. In this meta work, where Fulci is “overcome with a sense of repulsion,” he visually links onscreen acts of horrific violence with eating raw meat — a chunk of flesh equals stark tartare.

Pretty quickly, Fulci goes mad as the felonious behavior of his films seeps into his daily life and he experiences disturbing visions, like the slaying of a whore in broad daylight (and a nipple-muncher under the cloak of darkness), and an orgy in which a billiards player redefines “corner pocket” with the nude woman draped across the pool table. Many, many clips from his previous films — from Sodoma’s Ghost to Touch of Death — are utilized.

It’s all very nasty stuff, that even heavy use of Edvard Grieg’s classical-music hit “In the Hall of the Mountain King” can’t serve as a reliable salve. It really is like a proto-Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, but one that most video viewers won’t have the stomach to take. I can’t say I really blame them. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.