Cat People (1942) Review

        We’re in the 1940s now, around this time in terms of horror is more subdued that what came before. While this movie came out approximately two days before the U.S.’s involvement with World War 2, the event was far bigger than the typical monsters or freaks that was part of the horror genre a decade prior. Cat People is interesting since is mixes supernatural with film noir elements. 

1. A Thing about Panthers

        Plot wise the movie is straightforward. We follow Irena who is a fashion sketch artist in New York, she harbors a dark secret when she meets and marries a man named Oliver. Something that you’ll notice whenever you watch something like this during that time is that the film is roughly short. Not that it’s the film detriment clocking in at an hour 15 minutes, but it manages to succinctly tell an interesting story.

        What I like about is that Irena is a complicated character. She has this baggage that if she loves someone she’ll morph into a panther and kill. As dumb as it sounds, I’ll elaborate on it more on the next tab. The movie plays it 100 percent straight since she’s said that the fear that she has was only a childhood legend. And it gives us some leeway as to believe her or convinced that she’s insane. 

        That’s one aspect that I find interesting. I think this film was the first instance and I could be wrong that used mental illness in a horror movie. Typically, the protagonist is mostly sane, and the danger is obvious since the threat is the highlight of the film. With this one, we track Irena’s character and slowly believe with what she’s saying is true. Although, when both Irena and Oliver go and exchange a pet, all the other animals are ruffled. 

        Character-wise, everyone does a good job in the film. Oliver Reed plays Irena’s husband and the level of conflict within him is interesting. He mostly just says to her that her nightmare is mostly from her past and it really starts to drag him down. It gets to a point that he confides with his coworker Alice. With her, I thought that’s where the noir characteristic would pop up, since it’s established that Alice likes Reed. Instead, Irena’s the main woman who is looking to kill Alice. 

        The horror elements are more subtle and not too outward in its approach. We don’t see the danger or the monster but the movie has that dread element. This is one film so far that has an effective jump scare for the time. Just after Alice and Reed leave after dinner, Irena follows her home. We focus on the duo, but we stay on Alice’s character. The tension is filled since she starts to hear someone follow her. Then jumpscare, a city bus stops but makes a panther sound as it parks next to Alice. 

2. Val Lewton

        Last year, I talked about The Body Snatcher that stars Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. What I didn’t recognize was the producer of the film named Val Lewton. I feel it’s now appropriate to give him the credit and how he basically saved a studio from going under. RKO Studios was in the red in the 1940s, they started a new department that specializes in making B-movies. Think bottom of the barrel movies that have no thought put into it. 

        To at least put more into it than what the studio did, Val Lewton would take the titles that he was given like Cat People for instance and make the film interesting than what was expected. More so that he co-written the films and didn’t take any of the credit. It’s commendable since he could’ve stooped low and taken a paycheck but had the gumption to at least give it the care and attention to produce a good film, given that the studio gave him less than 150,000 dollars to work with.

3. Legacy

        No one at the time, especially RKO had thought that this film would save the studio from financial ruin. Val Lewton went on to have a storied career as a producer and as a writer. More so that RKO thought they had given him too much wiggle room since they believed that the film would bomb. It had a sequel that has little connection to the original directed by Robert Wise. If you don’t know who that is, he directed the Best Picture winners The Sound of Music and West Side Story. As I mentioned earlier, this may be one of the first horror movie to use some element of mental health, which would pop up again in other acclaimed films like The Exorcist and Hereditary. 

4. Overall 

        Cat People seems like a cheesy horror movie, but the best kind when you don’t see the threat and see someone slowly lose their mind.