Cat People. 1982. USA. Directed by Paul Schrader. Screenplay by Alan Ormsby. With Nastassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell, John Heard, Annette O'Toole. 35mm. 120 min.
A steamy, modern take on Jacques Tourneur’s seminal 1942 horror flick of the same name, Paul Schrader’s Cat People takes that original story—about a young woman learning, amid a series of mysterious murders, that she apparently descends from a line of werecats—and expands it into a more robust freak show, taking every chance to cut against Tourneur’s resourceful, suggestive minimalism by indulging in stylishly overabundant color and sexuality. Much of the movie’s power and pleasure comes from the essence of its New Orleans setting, which, with that city’s historically rich embrace of folklore and Creole myth, makes the supernatural feel that much more plausible. It’s a voodoo story without the usual trappings.