A none-too-subtle visual metaphor for fear of loss of virginity, one of the film's central themes.
Irena Gallier (Natassja Kinski) arrives in New Orleans to move in with her brother, Paul (Malcolm McDowell), years after their parents died and the two were separated in foster care upon being orphaned. From the moment she arrives, her brother makes it clear that his interest in her is considerably more than merely filial, as he openly stares at her with longing and sniffs her scene like an animal when in close proximity. When outside of the house, Irena sketches the animals at the local zoo, with her attention being especially focused on the zoo's panther. Her intense focus while sketching causes Irena not to notice that night has fallen and the=at the zoo is closing for the day, so zoologist Oliver Yates (John Heard) goes to inform her of closing time. Startled by him, Irena runs away, and it is here that she first displays superhuman catlike attributes, in this case the ability to gracefully leap distances that a normal human could never manage. Undeterred, Oliver asks Irena out and a romance ignites.
As
his advances toward his sister fail, Paul goes out at night in the form
of a black leopard, with the intent to hunt human prey in order to sate
his blood lust. His intended victim escapes with a mere mauling, and
leopard Paul is tranquilized and captured by animal control and taken to
the zoo, where he is examined and placed in a cage, winding up under
the care of Oliver. Paul is trapped there for days, until Irena drops by
and sees him in cat form. Paul had been missing and Irena was concerned
of his whereabouts, but a part of her sees the cat and feels the
connection. Later, Paul satisfies his blood lust by tearing the arm off
of another zoologist, and once sated, Paul resumes human form and
returns home. It is there that he directly informs that he and Irena are
descended from an ancient race of human-feline hybrids, the product of
cat spirits mating with human women, and that their parents were brother
and sister. Siblings of their species must mate with each other, lest
their passionate urges transform them into apex predators who can only
be human again after making a kill. Understandably freaked out by this,
Irena runs away with Oliver to his getaway cabin on the bayou, where she
wrestles with her desire to be intimate with Oliver but denying herself
out of fear of the family curse. As more feline traits manifest and her
need reaches the boiling point, it's only a matter of time until nature
takes its course, and brother Paul isn't happy about being denied his
right as Irena's fated other half. With the curse's demand for blood
after the deed is done, how can the love of Irena and Oliver survive?
And what of Paul?
Directed
by Paul Schrader, the genius writer of Martin Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER
(1982), CAT PEOPLE is a remake of the 1942 classic, updating the basic
idea and moves it from Manhattan to New Orleans, upping the gore content
and cranking up the sexual heat to about as much as could be gotten
away with in an R-rated film in 1982. Coming out during the height of
the early-1980s slasher movie boom while also being a byproduct of the
era's wave of practical transformation effects wave, CAT PEOPLE's main
selling point was its intent as a "hot" horror confection. The
simultaneous sultry and waif-like beauty of Natassja Kinski was milked
for all it was worth, as her dark-eyed image was in the zeitgeist at the
time, and her Euro sensibilities rendered her unafraid of roles in
which she would be seen full-frontally nude, and her generosity in that
department was most appreciated. In short, Schrader's version took what
was implicit in Jacques Tourneur's 1942 original and made it explicit,
and, for me at least, that is where the 1982 version falters.
The themes of fear of loss of virginity and embracing one's primal sexual urges remain, but in taking advantage of a more permissive cinematic era, unnecessarily adds incest to the mix, presumably in a bid to make the sexual content that much more prurient, but the story would have worked just fine without it. And it doesn't help that Irena's relationship with the zoologist is a dud, thanks to him having no discernible personality. I found it impossible to care about their romance, and when the story hinges on that central pairing, that's a big problem. No amount of dreamlike atmosphere, lush cinematography, and moody synth soundtrack can do much to lift this above the level of a WEIRD TALES pulp story gene-spliced into an installment of RED SHOE DIARIES. And though well-executed, the transformation moments are too few and they pale in comparison against those of AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON from the previous year. (Too be fair, that's an admittedly high bar.) For my money, the best effect in the film is when zookeeper Ed Begley Jr. gets his arm torn off. As for the eye candy, Natassja Kinski is hypnotic in her shaggy-bushed glory, but supporting player Annette O'Toole as a stunning redheaded zoologist was the female presence that haunted my memory for decades, and I remain a staunch fan of hers some forty-two years later. She gets to reenact the original film's famous swimming pool scene as the prey being stalked, and in the process we get a welcome-but-gratuitous topless scene where her alabaster sweater goblins command the screen.
Your mileage may vary, but Schrader's CAT PEOPLE just doesn’t hold up for me after 42 years.
When I first saw this film, I was a hormonally raging 17-year-old, so its content was the perfect thing at the right time, but now I’m just shy of sixty, I’ve had more practical sexual experience than the average American male (not a brag, but a statistical truth, plus the luck of the draw), and my abilities in that department are diminished due to age and my medical conditions, so the film’s once-vaunted eroticism has no effect on me now. Taking the titillating erotic effect out of the equation, what I’m left with is a study in typical early-’80’s style over substance. The film is gorgeously constructed, and that’s it’s biggest problem. It feels, to me, like a construct rather than a story being told. As previously nioted, the transformation effects, while decent, pale in comparison with those found in AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON and THE THING, and aside from that, the cinematography, the oh-so-early-’80’s Girgio Moroder music, and the nudity of Nastassia Kinski and Annette O’Toole, I find the overall result to be, well, frankly kind of boring. It took me three nights to finish this sit-through, the first time I've seen the film since it opened in 1982, and if I’m being honest, if not for review purposes for this year’s 31 Days of Horror, I’d have just skipped the rest of it after O'Toole's topless segment.
With
all of that said, considering the current era's spate of remakes and
"re-imaginings," I hope no one gets it in their head to again remake CAT
PEOPLE for a contemporary audience. The original got everything right
82 years ago. The only thing that could be brought to the story now is
amping the gore up to the level of the LONE WOLF AND CUB movies,
preferably achieved with practical effects, but I say just let it lie.
Shrader's CAT PEOPLE is not terrible, but, pretty and prurient though it
certainly is, you can do a lot better. More of an "adult" fantasy than
an outright horror, it's not a bad date movie, though.
Poster for the American theatrical release.
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