Cat People

"What do you MEAN someone is remaking this movie!?! Cat Time!"

Our first class for Intro to Film Genres was last night. I will post a list of films we'll be watching shortly, but I will note that all of our films are clustered in the rather concrete genre of Horror, and the fluid, indistinct "super-genres" of melodrama and film noir.

Our first film was Jacques Torneur's Cat People, the first of nine horror films created by Val Lewton's RKO studios (other notable titles include I Walked With a Zombie and The Leopard Man). Although undoubtedly restrained by limited budget, the film has a palpable atmosphere of dread and foreboding far beyond most of its modern counter-parts - and like most horror films, it has a plethora of interesting issues to explore (and dissect, if you will) - and in this case, it's actually good - perhaps even great.

To paraphrase my colleague Ms. Harriman's excellent article on Mad Love, I can't claim to be a big fan of the horror genre. (To be honest, I haven't even seen a lot of the classics like Dracula or Frankenstein, so I have no pretension of being an expert on the genre- I merely opining on what I've seen.) I find the modern slasher and "torture porn" genres to be particularly abhorrent; grotesque gore and ridiculously over-the-top violence isn't really my style, although to be fair I do often get a nice laugh at some of it. It takes a lot to impress me - style, thoughtfulness - but most horror movies, at least in this day and age, are contrived around cheap scares that quickly grow tiresome, either of the monster-in-the-dark sort (what Pauline Kael called a "Boo Movie") like Alien (which may be scary at first, but quickly loses its impact through repeated attacks), or the gore-soaked splatter fests like Halloween, Friday the 13th, and (God help us) Saw. Dario Argento is the only horror director I can claim to be a fan of (excluding Hitchcock, who doesn't really count), and even his movies are instances of style over substance (but what style!). These aforementioned films lack subtlety, intelligence and imagination (maybe some small points for thinking of creative ways to spray blood across the screen), and thrive mostly on cheap thrills of sadomasochism and oft-written about sexual fetishization; quite frankly, I'd rather watch something like Leprechaun in the Hood, which at least doesn't make any claims to creativity or brilliance, and is at least worthy of a few (intentional?) laughs, than any of the tiresome and redundant Halloween films. Cat People, however, is another kettle of fish entirely, a masterful piece of expressionism that relies on photography and suspense to bring its tale creepily to life.

Cat People tells the story of Irena (Simone Simon), a Serbian emmigrant in America who is clearly not normal. She is an introvert who keeps portraits and sculptures of cats around, has no friends, loves the dark, and is feared by any animal she comes across. Irena's life seems to change when she falls for Oliver Reed (Jack Holt), an ordinary guy, and the two quickly get married - but Irena refuses to consumate their relationship, for fear that she is a Cat Person, a group of cursed witches who take on the form of panthers when aroused to anger or lust. Irena and Oliver's marriage quickly grows strained, and Oliver soon turns to his close friend Alice (Jane Randolph) - who has unrequited romantic feelings towards him - for help. This arises, and soon Alice and Oliver find themselves the target of an escalating series of alarming incidents, being stalked by a panther-like creature who seems bent on destroying them.

Cat People is an interesting film in many aspects. Perhaps we should start with the cinematography and camera work, by Torneur and Nicholas Musaraca. Constrained by a relatively low budget, Torneur channels his talents elsewhere, making the most of shadows and lighting, creating an indescribably eerie atmosphere. All we see are vague but disturbing hints of impending danger - shadows reflected on a wall, growling noises, a shadowy outline of a panther prowling through the darkness, panther paw-prints turning into those of high-heeled shoes. The use of lighting, shadows, sound, and editing - particularly in the two major set-pieces, Alice's long walk through Central Park and her encounter with the beast in a swimming pool - creates an eerie, repressive, and decidedly nightmarish atmosphere. This is probably best, as the few glimpses we see of the panther are laughably fake - the film's big attack scene illicited a great deal of laughter in my classmates - but perhaps that's all for the better. Unseen monsters, both in real life and fiction, are the scariest kind, after all. The movie takes a clever Hitchcockian twist at the end, where the "explanation" provided actually serves to obfuscate what really happened - better that we (well, the film's characters) live on in our delusions that the world is a rational, safe place.

As most horror movies are wont to, the film deals extensively with sexuality and morality - and is surprisingly explicit for a movie of its era. Throughout the film, Irena refuses to "kiss" her husband because of fear that it will unleash her bestial side. Substitute kiss for screw (pardon my vulgarity, but clinical terms are not really applicable here) and this dialogue becomes much more on the nose. Isn't it always the case in slasher films that the sluttish, big-breasted and oft-naked teen girls who have lots of sex get whacked, while the virginal heroine is the lone survivor? Oliver may drawn emotional to his old friend Alice, but as he states, he has an indescribable physical attraction to Irena. Eventually, the kindly psychiatrist (Tom Conway) who tries to help Irena falls victim - with deadly results. Irena is a not a femme fatale in any meaningful sense - she does not deliberately set out to seduce Oliver or the Doctor - but she radiates an irresistible, palpable, long-repressed sexuality that soon takes physical form. As in so many future, horror films, sex equals death and destruction, and only the virginal (or at least virtuous) survive.

Cat People is a mite dated, and the acting isn't anything overly special - although Simone Simon is appropriately lovely and alluring as Irena - but for the most part, it works brilliantly. It's got an atmosphere that most films today, horror or otherwise, couldn't even hope to replicate. It gets a solid 9/10 and a definite recommendation from me.