Cat People (1982)
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A young woman discovers her family's dark secret of werecat ancestry while reconnecting with her brother in New Orleans.
The story
Irena Gallier travels from Canada to New Orleans to reconnect with her brother, Paul, whom she was separated from as an orphan. While exploring the city, she encounters a mysterious black panther and meets Oliver, a zoo curator who offers her a job. As Irena navigates her burgeoning relationship with Oliver and her complicated history with Paul, she begins to experience unsettling feline instincts. Meanwhile, the local police investigate a series of gruesome crimes involving a panther and a suspected serial killer, heightening the tension as Irena's connection to the supernatural world becomes increasingly apparent.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
Irena Gallier travels to New Orleans to reunite with her brother Paul. After a prostitute is mauled by a black panther, police and zoologists capture the beast. Irena meets Oliver, a zoo curator, and begins a romance with him while fearing physical intimacy. Police discover Paul's basement is filled with corpses, leading them to believe he is a serial killer who fed a panther. Paul eventually reveals to Irena that they are both werecats; mating with a human transforms a werecat into a panther, and only killing a human can revert the form. Paul attacks Oliver and is shot by Alice, a woman who loves Oliver. After Paul's corpse melts into slime, Irena's feline instincts emerge. She eventually sleeps with Oliver and transforms into a panther, fleeing to a lake house where she kills the caretaker to regain human form. She begs Oliver to have sex with her so she can transform again to be with her 'own kind.' Oliver agrees, and as she transforms, she is eventually trapped in a cage as a permanent panther, where Oliver feeds her.
- First release year
- 1982
- Runtime (minutes)
- 118
- Production countries
- United States
- Original languages
- English
- Directors
- Paul Schrader
- Writers
- Alan Ormsby · screenplay
- Cast and characters
- Nastassja Kinski; Malcolm McDowell; John Heard; Annette O'Toole
- Genres
- supernatural horror; erotic thriller; monster movie; supernatural thriller
- Themes
- erotic horror; mythical vs realistic; incest; transformation
- Tone and mood
- erotic; horror; fantasy
- Setting
- New Orleans in the present day
- Premise and plot tags
- werecats; shapeshifting; monster; supernatural; erotic thriller
- Source material / true-story basis
- 1942 film of the same name
- Reception
- The film received generally favorable reviews, with praise for Nastassja Kinski's performance and its status as a significant science fantasy. However, it received mixed reviews from some critics who found it uneven.
- Reported review scores
- Metacritic · score: 61 · scale: 100 · review count: 17
- Production trivia
- The film was produced by RKO Radio Pictures, the same studio that produced the original 1942 film.; The film features a theme song with lyrics and vocals by David Bowie.; The production used cougars that were dyed black because leopards are impossible to train.
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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