Gruesome Galleries: 1982’s CAT PEOPLE

By Chris Alexander

SHOCK strokes some shots from Paul Schrader’s sexy and strange 1982 remake CAT PEOPLE.

Remaking a film whose greatest strength lies in its subtlety, its shadows and monochrome lyricism as a visceral modern sexual psychodrama was a controversial move in 1982. This was, of course, the same year John Carpenter did a cosmic commercial belly-flop with his brilliant and brutally violent remake of THE THING, a film that is now widely regarded as a masterpiece, but was woefully out of step with its time.

Paul Schrader’s quote of Jacques Tourneur’s moody 1942 melodrama isn’t as freakish as Carpenter’s redux, nor is it considered any sort of masterpiece. In fact, it’s a flawed film; a movie at war with the darkness at its core that it feverishly wants to explore and a more audience friendly love story that seems somewhat ill-fitting to the material.

But Schrader’s CAT PEOPLE is still a fantastic and underrated jolt of stylized horror cinema.

Its blend of kinky sexuality, shape-shifting strangeness and tendon-snapping gore is almost as thrilling as its predecessor was muted, alive as it is with slick visuals and kinetic Giorgio Moroder music, some of it by way of the late David Bowie (go here for a deeper discussion on the film’s magnificent theme song).

Nastassja Kinski is the feminine mirror of her magnetic (and reportedly insane) father Klaus Kinksi, here playing Irena, a young woman who, after being reunited with her estranged brother (Malcolm McDowell), begins to realize her destiny. Turns out she’s a member of an ancient clan of incestuous, shape-shifting panther people and her legacy is to in fact mate with her sibling in order to keep the beast at bay.

Irena however, has little desire to fuck her brother, leading to a perverse romantic triangle (with a pre-C.H.U.D John Heard), many were-cat deaths and transformations (courtesy of the great Tom Burman) and unforgettable,hypnotic sequences of ritualistic fantasy.

CAT PEOPLE is a beautifully made picture with plenty of alarming scenes and relentless sensuality.

Just look at the bloody, sexy shots below…

Cat People (1982)

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    Cat People (1982) #1

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    Cat People (1982) #2

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    Cat People (1982) #3

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    Cat People (1982) #4

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    Cat People (1982) #5

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    Cat People (1982) #6

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    Cat People (1982) #7

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    Cat People (1982) #8

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    Cat People (1982) #9

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    Cat People (1982) #10

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    Cat People (1982) #11
Chris Alexander
Chris Alexander

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