Cat People (1982)

Directed by Paul Schrader
Music by Giorgio Moroder
Starring Nastassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell, John Heard, Annette O'Toole

"An erotic fantasy about the animal within us all."

Review by Junior

Whenever the subject of "guilty pleasures" comes up, Paul Schrader's 1982 remake of Val Lewton's 1942 classic Cat People pounces to mind. Guilty because of the loopy concept, the copious amounts of non-gratuitous sex and the bloody panther attacks. Yet the movie's hotness, style, music and actors make it a pleasure.

The movie opens to drums and synth strains. Orange sand blows away revealing human skulls. A young girl is tied to a lone tree in the rocky, alien landscape and left there for a stalking panther, who approaches her and then---embraces her?

After the dreamlike opening we are introduced to Irena (Nastassja Kinski), immediately after her arrival in America from the unnamed, mysterious realm of the prologue. She has come to New Orleans to see her brother, Paul (Malcolm McDowell.) We see their reunion and learn some backstory. It seems Irena has come to America to be with her brother to sort out the problem of their unique family history.

Irena and Paul come from a clan of werepanthers, but unlike their lupine cousins who change when the moon is full, Irena and her ilk change after having sex and can only revert back to human form by killing. This is a problem because they are perpetually horny, apparently. There is one solution, however, which Paul favors---if brother and sister do it, they don't turn, proving the old adage "Incest is best! Put your sister to the test!" But while Irena is not happy about her feline side, she is reticent to make the beast with two backs with her loving brother. McDowell effectively establishes a mysterious and slightly threatening persona so that we, as an audience, are not quite sure whether he means his sister good or ill. Add to that the fact that, after their initial reunion night, Paul disappears. It seems seeing his comely sister was too much for him and he had to go out into the night and get him a little action.

Irena explores New Orleans and meets Oliver (John Heard), the curator of the New Orleans zoo. He takes the shivering and soaking wet Irena under his wing, naturally, and feeds her oysters, as any red-blooded American man would to a sexy, puffy lipped European babe like Kinski, despite the fact that he already has a sexy, big-bosomed American girlfriend named Alice (Annette O'Toole.)

I won't go through the whole plot. Suffice to say there are two love triangles established. Oliver---Irena---Alice and Paul---Oliver---Irena. Will Oliver sleep with Irena and get disemboweled by the cat while he lies is post-coital bliss? Will Paul kill Oliver and have his way with his sister? Will Alice claw Irena's eyes out herself? The triangle comes to a head (or a point, I guess) in the famous scene from Val Lewton's original, recreated here almost shot-for-shot, where Alice is stalked while walking through a park at night, moving from pools of light from the street lamps through the darkness in between as she becomes more and more sure that Irena, in cat form, is about the pounce.

The music by Giorgio Moroder is terrific, moody and atmospheric, establishing a smooth and sexy undercurrent throughout the film. The closing song by David Bowie is great, with lyrics appropriate to the film. The acting is first rate, despite the silly material. The actors take it all seriously enough. McDowell is in fine form, horny, threatening and mysterious, not yet having fallen completely into the mad villain role he now phones in constantly. Kinski is coquettish and beautiful, and naked more often than not. As always, John Heard plays a great everyman. Around the time of this movie he went from being a big actor in small films (see Chilly Scenes of Winter, Cutter's Way, Between the Lines, no really---see them) to being a small actor in big films (such as Big and the Pelican Brief). Sympathetic and yet surprisingly callous, he makes no bones or apologies to Alice about the fact that he is clearly chasing some Irena tail. Annette O'Toole shows her amazing ability to float without treading water, and you gotta give a hand to Ed Begley, Jr. as one of the zoo workers.

The movie establishes a dreamlike mood, effectively maintaining a feeling that this insane idea is plausible. Sensual, mysterious, and spooky New Orleans is the perfect backdrop for this sexy, violent, entertaining fantasy where everybody gets laid, some people get hurt and/or die, some people turn into cats and nobody wears underwear. I changed my mind. I'm not guilty about this. I love this movie. So there!

Look---8
Acting---8
Story---6