Katzenmenschen

Cat People is one of the horror genre's most influential films, it's one of the first psychological horrors or at least one of the first to play on the fears of the audience. But Cat People is more than just an influential film, it's also a great one and holds up terrifically well.

It's very well made, with beautiful cinematography and great and effective use of shadows and shadowy lighting. The sets are also hauntingly sumptuous. Cat People has a haunting music score and a very intelligent script that has a good amount of tension as well as a bit of subtle wit. The story, and the atmosphere it has, is one of the main reasons why Cat People works so well, this is more than a monster/ghost feature, this is more a psychological horror that relies on suspense and playing on the audience's fear. Both of which Cat People does splendidly, the suspense in the best parts is positively nerve-shredding and the whole film has a constant eeriness that makes it creepy without resulting to cheap shocks, jump scares or gore. For me the two most effective scenes have always been with the pool and the walk through the park, the latter being justifiably famous and contains a very clever "false shock". It's beautifully directed by Jacques Tourneur, the characters are interesting and the acting is mostly solid if not the best, with Simone Simon being superb. Simon brings a sensuality, menace and poignancy to her role, that makes her presence chillingly mysterious but at times moving. Tom Conway does just fine too.

If there is anything to criticise, Kent Smith is very stiff here. Other than that Cat People is great, both of its genre and as a film in general. 9/10 Bethany Cox

After several movies made in his native France ,Jacques (Jack) Tourneur makes his first American works in the late thirties."Cat people" is the fifth one;the others are difficult to see and anyway this is this movie that is looked upon as his towering achievement(with the exception of "out of the past") .His female star,Simone Simon,whose English was perfect,enjoyed a career in both countries too:her best part is easily Jean Renoir's "la bête humaine" ,(human beast:it's funny when you know she's playing a woman-animal here).

"Cat people" belongs to the fantasy and horror genre,but it does not really follow its rules.We're close to psychological drama.(Almost) deprived of "special effects" -which is a blessing-Tourneur works with his camera the way a painter does with shadow and light to create strange dreamy atmospheres The pièces de résistance are the scene in the swimming -pool that creates a feeling of terror without using the tricks of the trade,and the scene when Oliver and Alice are in the flat,hearing roaring.

The movie was ahead of its time in several respects:the Freudian allusions would later be developed by Fritz Lang("secret beyond the door",1945) and of course Hitchcock ("Spellbound",same year).You're going to say that these two great directors give their movies a "realistic" treatment and Jack Tourneur does not.Actually,he takes a divergent way:he introduces ambiguity,this ambiguity dear to Roman Polanski .After all,it could be a mere ,so to speak, neurosis.Few of the sequences actually deal with the supernatural :most of the time,it's a couple then a triangle:the "fantastic" elements could be real :the disturbing woman,who calls Irene "my sister",the scenes with the panther at the zoo,and the pool sequence can be explained by Irène's jealousy.

Although,it's only understood ,it's obvious that the marriage Irène/Oliver has not been consummated,because of a not clearly defined reason-how can a man as pragmatist as Oliver believe in such a far-fetched curse?Isn't it the fear of woman,of the original sin?.This topic will be brilliantly taken on by Christian de Challonges "l'alliance" (1970).Note also how Richard Donner aped the pet shops scene for "the omen" (1976).

It seems that Alice's character is an easy way out,and the weak part of the movie because she's essentially here to comfort the audience,to show the way to "straight" life and to secure a happy end.

The remake (1982) destroys all ambiguity,keeps nothing from the original story but the proper nouns ,and fills its quota of nudity and blood.Stick to the Tourneur version.

'Cat People' was the first collaboration between director Jacques Tourneur ('Curse Of The Demon') and producer Val Lewton, and is still one of their greatest achievements, and one of the most influential horror movies ever made. It's arguably the best horror movie made between the Universal classics of the 1930s and the beginning of Hammer studios in the 1950s. So many subsequent film makers from Hitchcock on down have been influenced by this movie and yet it rarely gets the respect it deserves. 'Cat People' pretends to be a monster movie but is really something more complex, and relies on atmosphere and suspense rather than explicit shocks or gore (there is virtually none of the latter). Fans of Hitchcock and film noir will probably appreciate it more than hardcore gorehounds. Simone Simon is very well cast as the mysterious and troubled Irena and the rest of the cast range from adequate to very good. The acting is probably one of the weakest links in the film but not enough to spoil your enjoyment (I think 1940s acting is an acquired taste and I can see how a modern viewer who expects more realistic and natural performances could sometimes find them a bit hard to swallow). 'Cat People' is a horror classic and is highly recommended to anyone interested in the genre.

This film hits me on the most personal level of any film I've ever seen. This tale about a young, beautiful, Serbian immigrant named Irena, who marries a man named Oliver, but can't have sex with him because she believes she'll kill him, is a movie that speaks to me every time I watch it. I see so much of myself in the character of Irena, and I connect so much with her tortured psyche. The way she is afraid of hurting those she cares about, the way no one can understand her, and the way she's her own other worldly being are aspects that I can identify with, and make me look at Irena as a kindred spirit for me. But aside from relating to the lead character, I also adore Jacque Tourneur's artistic direction, the story, the lighting, the music, the dialogue, and the overall poetic, and darkly romantic feel to this movie. This film is a true work of art, I've watched it millions of times, and I'm still not done with it. Val Lewton, I love you!

I have this theory about the horror films of Val Lewton. It is my contention that these movies caused a sea change in the content and tone of the movies of Alfred Hitchcock. The reason I say this is simple, really: Lewton is the only filmmaker I have ever caught Hitchcock cribbing scenes from. He did it twice. Once from The Seventh Victim (dir. by Mark Robson), which I swear to god provides the first half of the Shower Scene from Psycho. The second from Cat People, which provided the pet store scene in The Birds. This second scene is almost a shot for shot swipe. Both of these steals are evidence that Hitch knew and admired the Lewton movies. More than that, though, there is a change in the subtext of Hitchcock's thrillers after the Lewton movies. The movies he made before them were cut from the Fritz Lang mold of political thrillers. After the Lewton movies, Hitch's movies became more psychosexual in nature. Vertigo, for instance, could easily fit into Lewton's output.

Cat People is the first of the Lewton movies and sets the tone for them. It pretends to be about a McGuffin (serbian were -panthers), but is actually about something else (in this case, frigidity and repressed lesbianism). This represents a huge change in the evolution of the horror movie. Cat People is the first horror movie to explore these themes as central concerns rather than as sub-rosa undercurrents. It also pioneered the techniques of film noir (which as a genre didn't really exist yet). Cat People is strikingly stylized and its effect is of stranding the viewer in the middle of a darkened room with some dreadful beast circling just outside his sphere of perception. This has a hell of an impact--particularly if you have the good fortune to see this in a theater. I'm not going to claim that Cat People is one of the best horror movies ever made (it does have flaws), but it is one of the four most influential horror movies ever made (along with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Psycho, and Night of the Living Dead). But unlike its brethren, its influence spreads corrosively through the entirety of cinema through both film noir and the films of Alfred Hitchcock. You would be hard pressed to find any film short of Citizen Kane or Rashomon that is nearly as influential.