Cat People (1942)

CAT PEOPLE (1942)

Dir: Jacques Tourneur

1/31 #31daysofhorror

"Even as fog continues to lie in the valleys, so does ancient sin cling to the low places, the depression sin the world consciousness." - "The Anatomy of Atavism" - Dr. Louis Judd

My favorite factoid about Cat People is that it invented the jump scare, and what an intelligent scare it is too. Although, I’m a bit more partial to the pool scene myself. We chose this film as a starting point in our 31 Days of Horror as it is a classic that usually gets overlooked in Halloween lists. Many people go with a Universal monster, and I’ve been guilty of it as well. We ploughed through our Universal monsters collection in the previous years. Other lists hop to Psycho (1960) or Night Of The Living Dead (1968), but again they’re in the popular clique. But for a great psychological study springing forth from a low budgeted scrappy studio, the marriage of Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur cannot be beat.

Val Lewton was an assistant to David O. Selznick, the producer of films like Gone With The Wind (1939)and Rebecca (1940). He decided to become a producer himself. In 1942, Val Lewton became the head of the horror department of RKO. He only had to follow three rules: each film had to be under $150k, each film must be under 75 minutes, and he would be supplied the titles to each film. The first title to come down the pipeline was Cat People. Lewton began researching cats to figure out what kind of horror film he could make. He brought together a team of creatives that he’d worked with in the past. They worked frantically on the story and set out to make their low budget dreams come true. Cat People was an instant success, at least at the box office. Critics at the time lambasted the film for its snobbish take on horror storytelling. Universal was still very much alive with The Wolf Man released the year before. And the mentality that all horror should be similar to the monsters over at another studio was very present in the minds of critics. Again, it is a case where the critic believes audiences are too stupid to understand a filmmaker’s intentions. With Cat People, Val showed RKO that they bet on the correct horse. A few less successful sequels were made until the concept was finally retired, that is until Paul Schrader gave us the 1982 remake with David Bowie’s “Playing With Fire” as it’s theme song.

Cat People is highly effective and shows what you can accomplish without special effects and one hell of an actress.