Classy horror movie from
1942. Directed by
Jacques Tourneur, written by
DeWitt Bodeen, and produced by
Val Lewton. Starred
Simone Simon,
Kent Smith,
Tom Conway, and the lovely
Jane Randolph.
The movie is about a
woman who might (and the film never lets you know for sure) turn into a
savage black panther whenever she gets
sexually aroused. Can she
fall in love with and
marry the man of her dreams without eviscerating him in the night?
Believe it or not, this is a very
subtle movie, but it delivers a bunch of genuine
scares and
creepy,
chilling moments. The scenes with Randolph's character being
stalked by an
unseen menace on a
dark, deserted
street and in the
swimming pool are
classics of
suspense and
fear. The movie almost qualifies as
film noir, just for the amount of light-and-
shadow contrast used by the filmmakers to boost the suspense. Tourneur and Lewton were big believers in the "less-is-more" school of horror, so you are often left wondering if that shadowy figure in the dark is really what you think it might be. Are the characters just seeing things? Is there really a monster out there? Can our senses be believed?
"Cat People" was followed by a
sequel (1944's "
Curse of the Cat People," which didn't really have much to do with the original movie other than the same actors and characters) and a remake (1982's mostly pointless "Cat People" with
Nastassja Kinski).