{"id":16377,"date":"2022-07-10T12:59:49","date_gmt":"2022-07-10T16:59:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=16377"},"modified":"2026-10-01T10:10:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T14:10:13","slug":"cat-people-1982","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=16377","title":{"rendered":"Cat People-1982"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cat People-1982<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director Paul Schrader<\/strong><\/p>\n

Starring Nastassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scott’s Review #1,275<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reviewed July 10, 2022<\/p>\n

Grade: B+<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cat People (1982) is a mysterious, psychological journey into the strange universe of humans possessing cat-like qualities, sometimes with a tendency towards vicious limb extraction and other mauling techniques.<\/p>\n

It’s an absurd premise, though admittedly clever, with an identity all its own.<\/p>\n

Feeling slightly dated, mostly because of the early-1980s synthesizer-like score, film style, and the casting of some actors at the top of their game, Cat People is nonetheless enjoyable and sexual.<\/p>\n

We especially recommend a late Friday or Saturday night viewing, with as little light as possible for the best ambiance.<\/p>\n

Since our rented DVD copy was ravaged by poor visual quality and hard-to-hear sound, I’m thinking a buying the film.<\/p>\n

The 1982 version of Cat People is directed by Paul Schrader, who is best known for writing or co-writing Scorsese’s greats Taxi Driver (1976) and Raging Bull (1980).<\/p>\n

The director also has his own share of films, including ones as recent as 2021.<\/p>\n

His production is a remake of one made some forty years earlier, which I have not seen.<\/p>\n

The mood of Cat People is overwhelmingly sensual and violent, a horror-thriller tale. The action immediately gets off to a sexually perverse start when, during presumably prehistoric days, a wild black panther impregnates a young girl offered to him via sacrifice.<\/p>\n

The message is clear that this results in a weird human\/cat hybrid coming into existence.<\/p>\n

In the present, Irena Gallier (Nastassia Kinski) harbors a dark family secret she despises. She reconnects with her estranged brother, Paul (Malcolm McDowell), who shape-shifts into a savage beast.<\/p>\n

He lives in the southern city of New Orleans and has spent time in a mental hospital.<\/p>\n

Irena visits the local zoo and finds herself attracted to handsome zoologist Oliver Yates (John Heard), even as her brother makes his incestuous advances toward her.<\/p>\n

Inevitably, the family curse rears its ugly head when Paul rips the arm off one of the zoo workers played by a young Ed Begley Jr.<\/p>\n

I really like how Schrader uses New Orleans as the central setting. Though it has nothing to do with the story, the French-influenced city is nice to look at, and the restaurant scenes feature Creole-style and other southern\/European sophisticated little gems.<\/p>\n

Ruby Dee is cast as a wacky housekeeper named Female, rippling with New Orleans flair, and who is aware of the terrible family secret.<\/p>\n

Nastassja Kinski is perfectly cast as the provocative and sultry main character, and she effortlessly leads the charge. Others like Heard and Annette O’Toole, w-list stars in the early 1980s, provide a time capsule of Hollywood relevance.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this also makes Cat People feel like it’s from another time, and the 1980s film style is painfully obvious.<\/p>\n

The growling and vicious cats feel both scary and fake during close-ups, but imagine the trickery of using real-life leopards? The filmmakers did the best they could, and that’s obvious.<\/p>\n

Some sequences are quite grisly, and when they aren’t, there are best-remembered scenes of peril and intrigue. O’Toole’s character of Alice (another zoologist) takes a late-night dip in a swimming pool and is harassed by a menacing Irena.<\/p>\n

Earlier, a great scene occurs when a prostitute named Ruthie visits her client in a dingy motel room, only to realize that her john is a mean leopard.<\/p>\n

We assume she will be ripped to shreds, but this dubious honor is saved for another slutty character whom Paul picks up at a funeral.<\/p>\n

An attempted triangle among Irena, Oliver, and Alice goes nowhere, and it’s bewildering that anyone even tried.<\/p>\n

The power couple is Irena and Oliver, whose smoldering love scenes are sensual and skin-heavy, and who profess almost-immediate love for each other.<\/p>\n

With enough explicit sex and gratuitous violence to keep many viewers titillated, Cat People (1982) has positives and negatives. When it was released, I bet it was a potboiler of juicy, relevant intrigue, but the film hasn’t held up quite as well as some others.<\/p>\n

Golden Globe Nominations:\u00a0<\/strong>Best Original Score, Best Original Song-“Cat People (Putting Out Fire)”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cat People-1982 Director Paul Schrader Starring Nastassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell Scott’s Review #1,275 Reviewed July 10, 2022 Grade: B+ Cat People (1982) is a mysterious, psychological journey into the strange universe of humans possessing cat-like qualities, sometimes with a tendency towards vicious limb extraction and other mauling techniques. It’s an absurd premise, though admittedly clever, … Continue reading Cat People-1982<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[312,13,11808,204],"tags":[10628,1570,11962,1225,9666,812,10981,1224,1223,5752,1647],"class_list":["post-16377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1982-movie-reviews","category-horror-films","category-supernatural-horror","category-thrillers","tag-annette-otoole","tag-ed-begley-jr","tag-frankie-faison","tag-john-heard","tag-john-larroquette","tag-malcolm-mcdowell","tag-marco-st-john","tag-nastassja-kinski","tag-paul-schrader","tag-ray-wise","tag-ruby-dee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16377"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24680,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16377\/revisions\/24680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}