HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2019: Cat People (1982)

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Okay, sorry about the delay--as you all know, I suffer from Bipolar and Explosive Mood Disorder, and I had a bit of a problem with the low point of my bipolar cycle.  I know I have only two days left and three films to view, but I will get to them....even if that means the essay on the final film is posted on November 1st.

I’ve known one of today’s sponsors for close to thirty years, when he was kind enough to write a letter thanking me for talking up his inking on a Superman story.  Now he is part of one of comicdom’s Power Couples, a writer/artist combo that has produced not only great original works through their Paper Films Imprint but put their mark on some of the iconic characters over at DC, including Power Girl, Harley Quinn (all you guys who swoon over Margot Robie in Suicide Squad owe these guys a debt you cannot repay), Jonah Hex and Wonder Woman, who they’re presently writing for the 100 Page Walmart Monthly line.  They’re also about to team Harley with the Birds of Prey in an upcoming miniseries this February.  I’m talking about my pals Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner.

Jimmy and Amanda made an interesting choice for this leg of my marathon.  It’s a remake of a film I covered last Halloween Horrorfest most positively.  Its director is someone I have great admiration for.  And it has what is, in my mind, the Greatest Theme Song Ever Written.  We’re talking about Paul Schrader’s 1982 interpretation of Cat People.

I usually am very grumpy when it comes to modern remakes--but there are times when I accept that the reason for remaking the property is valid, and this is one of them because Schrader chooses to focus this film not on Oliver (John Heard), in this incarnation the curator of the Audobon Zoo in New Orleans, but on Irena (Nastassja Kinski at the height of her Nastassja Kinski-ness).  As such, this film becomes less about sexual jealousy and more about accepting your sexuality, no matter how fucked up it may be.

Schrader makes several changes to the original, but for the most part they work in amplifying his themes.  Utilizing New Orleans, which has both a slower pace and a more sensual reputation, was a wise choice and changing the main location from an engineering firm to a zoo nicely collapses some of the running around that the original had.  And introducing a new character in Peter (Malcolm MacDowell, who actually looks similar enough to Kinski that you buy them as supernatural siblings) allows him to do the majority of the mayhem, allowing us to be sympathetic to Irena for almost the entire two hour running time.  The changes work so well, in fact, that the one major sequence that Schrader insists on being faithful to the original actually feels--justifiably so--like it came from another movie and doesn’t seem to make any sense in this Irena’s character arc.

The cast is pretty much top notch, even though Heard’s Oliver sometimes comes off as a creeper--when O’Toole said, “I’ve never seen you this obsessed before,” I just vigorously nodded my head.  In addition to some of people I’ve already mentioned, there are great turns by Ruby Dee, Ed Begley Jr. and Frankie Faison.  Lynn Lowery, who I adore, is also in it....but she seems to be there to strip and get her breasts out, so I don’t think this is one of her prouder moments.

I should probably mention the nudity.  There is loads of nudity, and it seems like every woman below a certain age (and Heard and MacDowell) was required to take off their clothes if they wanted to be in this movie.  In most cases, it’s kind of clinical.  Schrader seems to make a connection between how frequent Irena gets nude and how in tune she is with her true nature--in fact, the most disturbing thing in the film to me is a sequence that ends with a glimpse of a dirty, nude Kinski with blood all over her mouth screaming at Heard, ‘Don’t Look At Me!’.  Oddly enough, this film has a fairly notorious topless scene with Annette O’Toole--and yet, I found the scenes of her in her zookeeper outfit with her hair done up in braids far sexier than seeing her in her panties (of course, to be fair, this happens in the middle of that scene I mentioned where Schrader emulates a famous sequence from the original, so I was kind of out of the film already wondering what that sequence was doing here...).

Of course, this being the 80‘s, Schrader takes full advantage of practical effects, although I liked some sequences where the transformation is handled more prosaically.  He wisely holds off the full money shot of man-into-panther until the last act and, while it’s not up to American Werewolf or The Howling, it is cool.

I know the ending has been pilloried in the past, but I think people might have misinterpreted it.  There’s a specific choice Irena makes, and Oliver’s final solution is not some perverse ‘have my cake and eat it too’ but him moving on and making a life with someone he can sleep with without worrying about being mauled by a panther.

It also has the Best Theme Song Ever for a film.  You can keep your Queen, your Dokken, your Burt Bacharach...David Bowie’s ‘Cat People (Putting Out Fire)’ is Da Greatest Shit, and I will fight people over it.

This is a case, like the 1988 Blob, where a remake uses the original story as a framework to explore another aspect of the scenario.  It’s well done, well acted and doesn’t feel its two-hour length.  I recommend it.

There’s no sponsor for the next film, so the Randomizer presented to me 1960‘s City of The Dead, known primarily in the States as Horror Hotel.  This film was directed by the guy who directed The Night Stalker, John Llewellyn Moxey, so I'm fairly interested in this tale of modern day witchery.

Anyone who joins the Domicile of Dread Patreon at the $3 or more slot not only gets bits of writing and exclusive podcasts (like the upcoming Pacific Rim Rialto and maybe a little surprise at the end of this month), but can sponsor one of those slots and choose the film I have to watch and report on!