Cat People

Gorgeous black and white horror film! Well-written story with fascinating characters, especially Irena. I love the backstory. I love how realistic the characters are, just the right amount, no overdoing or super dramatic. Very effective use of light and shadows. I enjoyed this one. Irena deserves better!

Well directed, it maintains the tension, that use of shadows, that suggest rather than show

This movie uses your imagination rather than visual and it leads to some pretty scary results. Good movie that makes your mind work with the help of sounds and innuendo

I don’t typically like older movies (black and white). This was enjoyable, the tension was really well done and the acting is beautiful.

I'd rate this one an UGH out of 10 if I could.

This movie is prancing along like a romantic comedy, when, on what seems to be their second or third date, Oliver and Irena have this perplexing conversation.

guy: do you love me?
girl: mm-hmm
guy: you know I've never kissed you?
*girl looks away in dread*
guy: well isn't that funny?
girl: why?
guy: well, when people in America are in love, or even think they're in love, they've usually kissed long ago
*girl looks even more troubled*
guy: Irena, what's wrong?
girl: I've lived in dread of this moment

She hints at, but does not tell Oliver, what the viewer has probably read on the back of the Laserdisc/VHS/DVD/Blu-Ray box depending on the era, but which I'll mark as a spoiler because I'm a decent human being: [spoiler]she's not 100% sure, but is panicked by the idea that, when she kisses (_or more_) her first lover, she's afraid she'll turn into a giant black panther and rip him to pieces.[/spoiler]

At first, I had hoped that this would turn out to be a metaphor for asexuality and/or sexual repression. If you don't know the difference, I would tell you to educate yourself, but then neither does the psychiatrist character in this movie. He immediately chalks Irena's problems up to daddy issues and childhood bullying, and sends her on her merry way.

Unfortunately, the movie soon collapses into a jumble of mismatched horror scenes. [spoiler] Irena stalks the night as a panther and kills some sheep because... reasons? Oliver falls in love with a woman who can satisfy him who is not **totally a closeted asexual.** Dr. Judd, the hypnotherapist from hell (and fake-Britain, judging by his ridiculous accent,) tries to seduce Irena because he is the worst doctor in the world, and in her arousal (?) she rips him to pieces. And then she dies. [/spoiler]

Wait... what?

What was the point of making Irena so sympathetic and relatable, if [spoiler] you were just going to moralize that lust is bad [/spoiler] with her, anyway?

For me, this movie was a non-stop frustration-fest.

The best part is, this movie was a **huge,** unqualified success at the box office. It made 4 million dollars. In 1942 money.

What the actual f-- OKAY, the acting is good, bordering on great, and there's this delicious film noire atmosphere that made me want to keep watching even when the film went off the rails. The characters were well-painted, even the ones I didn't care for. But this movie gives you half of one thing and half of another.

I want the whole psychological study or the whole creature feature.

I don't go to "Citizen Kane" waiting for the moment he sprouts a praying mantis head!

And you know what happens at the end of "Laura?" She doesn't turn into the fifty foot woman!

I didn't go to "Gaslight" expecting it to turn into "Dracula" halfway through! Maybe that's a bad example. That last one sounds pretty cool.

Anyway, yeah. To reiterate. I know I watched a horror movie. I know I pressed play on the horror movie I dvr-ed, expecting the horror movie. But the first half of the movie showed me that it could have been so, _so_ much more. And that is just as tantalizing as [spoiler] Irena's almost-happiness in a world that didn't understand her. [/spoiler]

I found the characters unrelatable at first, but then realized much of the story is hidden or implied due to the censorship of the era. For example it hints that he's getting a divorce because his wife is frigid, and there is also an allusion to an affair, without ever stating it outright. For 1942 this is a very sexual film, the entire plot revolving around sex. It might have been ahead of its time, but it still has plenty of flaws: it's melodramatic, predictable, promotes cigarettes and psychiatry, and includes some misguided attempts at humor. It has a certain mood and atmosphere, but not enough, or often enough, to save it. A slow burn that telegraphs its destination the entire way.

From RKO comes the classic horror thriller _Cat People_. The story follows a Serbian émigré who believes that she’s a descendant of a tribe of Cat People who turn into panthers when they give into their sexual desires, and is tested when she’s perused by a young man who wants to marry her. The cast gives fairly strong performance, especially Simone Simon and Jane Randolph, and director Jacques Tourneur does an impressive job at creating tension and suspense. Still, the writing is a little weak with some awkward time jumps and is rather vague on the rules of being a cat person. Yet while it has a few problems, _Cat People_ is a solidly entertaining film that delivers some disturbing frights.

So people were dying in the war fields of WW2 and in gas chambers, yet they thought that a mentally challenged woman who thinks that she is a ferocious predator is frightening? What the actual f*ck man! Lame story,poor acting,bad idea overall.

Really strange, not very good. The lead performances were painful to watch.