Cat People (1982)

The original Cat People was a surprise hit, staying in theaters so long that a number of critics that hated it ended up getting to see it again and revising their views on the movie.  It helped prop up the ailing RKO Pictures and made a name Val Lewton when it came to horror films despite the fact that he was the producer, not the director, behind it and a number of other hits for RKO.  It is also made Simone Simon famous as an early scream queen.  

What it didn't have was much of a budget, so there was some vagueness on whether Irena, the cat person of the title, was transforming or if it was mental illness.  It was pretty clear at the end that she was a supernatural creature, but the mixture of sounds and shadows is what helped sell the film.  Come the late 1970s even some of the lower budget films could provide decent effects and the idea of remaking the movie was tossed about, with one of those scripts being a loose retelling of the original by Alan Ormsby.  This was picked up by Paul Schrader and was given a decent budget to work with since some execs at Universal, who now owned the RKO catalog, were eager to remake some of their most famous movies. 

Irena Gallier (Natassja Kinski) is an orphan whose parents died when she was a baby.  She has just been reunited with her brother Paul (Malcolm McDowell) who is living in New Orleans with his servant Female (Ruby Dee).  Paul has offered to put her up and find her a job, but his interests in her are much more carnal.  He knows that they are both victims of a family curse and that the only way to keep it under control is to keep things, literally, in the family. 

Irena is none too willing, especially since she starts to fall in love with Oliver (John Heard), the curator of the New Orleans Zoo.  They recently brought in a black leopard that had attacked a prostitute (Lynn Lowry), and Irena seems drawn to it.  Drawn to Oliver is his coworker Alice (Annette O'Toole), who is jealous of Irena's hold on him.  As Irena begins to learn more about her history and what she is she seeks to distance herself from Oliver as well as find a way of dealing with the curse in her own way. 

Paul Schrader has stated that he should have changed the name of the movie as the central story is much different than the original.  It is still too similar to have got away with that, since the swimming pool scene is pretty much shot-for-shot, minus the nudity, of the original.  Also, though it's not explained too well in the movie, outside of the incest the rules are the same.  It's a bit more explicit that sexual intercourse causes the change and killing is the only way to return to human form, but emotions such as rage or jealousy can cause the transformation as well.  

Schrader wanted to also go for a more erotic film, thus someone uninhibited like Kinski was a good fit for the role of Irena.  It does help that she is also quite a good actor and, for the type of movie it is, this definitely has the lineup to give it some class.  Schrader didn't forget that at the heart it was still a b-movie and made sure to throw in some satisfying gore scenes as well.  Since it was no longer 1942, and An American Werewolf in London was still fresh in everyone's minds, making a movie called Cat People without an actual transformation would not have been a good idea.  

The problem is that Cat People still moves at the pace of an older film and is nearly two hours long.  The original is definitely of its time, but that also means that a horror movie was typically just over an hour runtime, forcing the makers to keep things tight.  The opening is beautifully shot as are the dream sequences and the recreation of Alice being stalked by Irena in the pool.  There were hints that the end was going to be similar to American Werewolf, but there is a lot of the movie that could have been trimmed down to just over 90 minutes and it would have lost nothing.  It may have even done a bit better because, although it gained some popularity on cable, it didn't exactly set the box office on fire.  

Cat People (1982)

Time: 118 minutes

Starring: Natassja Kinski, John Heard, Malcolm McDowell, Annette O'Toole

Director: Paul Schrader