Influential noir director Jacques Tourneau infused this sexy, moody horror film with some sly commentary about the psychology and the taboos of desire.
Influential noir director Jacques Tourneau infused this sexy, moody horror film with some sly commentary about the psychology and the taboos of desire.
Handed the exploitive title Cat People, RKO producer Val Lewton opted for a thinking man's thriller--a psychological mood piece, more reliant on suspense and suggestion than overt "scare stuff". Simone Simon plays an enigmatic young fashion artist who is curiously affected by the panther cage at the central park zoo. She falls in love with handsome Kent Smith, but loses him to Jane Randolph. After a chance confrontation with a bizarre stranger at a restaurant, Simon becomes obsessed with the
notion that she's a Cat Woman--a member of an ancient Serbian tribe that metamorphoses into panthers whenever aroused by jealousy. She begins stalking her rival Randolph, terrifying the latter in the film's most memorable scene, set in an indoor swimming pool at midnight. Psychiatrist Tom Conway scoffs at the Cat Woman legend--until he recoils in horror after kissing Simon. If the film's main set looks familiar, it is because it was built for Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons (Lewton later used the same set for his The Seventh Victim). Cat People was remade by director Paul Schrader in 1982. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Cat People wasn't frightening like a slasher movie, using shocks and gore, but frightening in an eerie, mysterious way that was hard to define; the screen harbored unseen threats.
More a film about unreasoning fear than the supernatural, this work demonstrates what a filmmaker can accomplish when he substitutes taste and intelligence for special effects.
Ladies who have such temptations -- in straight horror pictures, at least -- should exercise their digits a bit more freely than does Simone Simon in this film.
Based on a deceptively simple story, this understated but scary horror film benefits from the collaboration of producer Val Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur and the touching performance from Simone Simon
First in the wondrous series of B movies in which Val Lewton elaborated his principle of horrors imagined rather than seen, with a superbly judged performance from Simon.
Female sexuality is a rich source of a certain kind of horror - the kind of horror that plays upon the anxieties that prudish bourgeois men have about their wives' sex lives.
Cat People's strength lies not in its simplistic story but in Jacques Tourneur's fantastic direction and beautiful, beautiful use of shadows. So many great scenes (the swimming pool, the walk in the park, the final scene at the zoo) and Jane Randolph in a swimsuit made me wish I saw Cat People a hell of a lot sooner.
Younger audiences probably won't give a shit, but their street cred went out the door once they made Lady Gaga a big deal. Otherwise, Val Lewton does it again!
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