Cat People 1942 Review

My Review on Cat People 1942

I thought this film was slow and not very frighting at all. I found none of the scenes to be scary or at all make me jump. I felt that it lagged out too long before anything really happened which was near the end at the scene in the swimming pool, which was a build up to nothing. 'The Cat People is a labored and obvious attempt to induce shock' (The New York Times). I did notice some scenes of animal cruelty in this film with the kitten in a shoe box and various big cats pacing stressfully back and fourth in small cages in a zoo, but back in its day care for animals was minimum. If this was seen today with big cats kept in small cages in local zoos it would be seen as animal cruelty and would kick up a fuss with animal rights organizations, which didn't exist back in 1942.

The story is about a Serbian woman named Irena that now lives in America and believes in all the cat people stories from where she came from, about women that could turn into panthers when aroused. She meets someone in a local zoo and eventually marries him. She tells him her fears about the cat people and believing that she is one of them and fears that she would kill him if she fell in love. 'Its heroine is a beautiful woman who never sleeps with her new husband (indeed she never even kisses him) because she fears that passion could turn her into a panther' (Chicago Sun-Times). He recommends that she get help and see a psychiatrist, which she does. The psychiatrist she sees tries to help her and does not believe her stories and says that she is a step away from insanity. Her husband starts to see another woman due to all these stories and not being able to get close to her. Irena finds out about this and stalks her. 'Fable has it that women descendants of a certain tribe, when projected into a jealous rage, change into panthers or other members of the cat family for attack, later reverting to human form' (Variety). In the end she is enticed by her psychiatrist and kisses him, only to end up killing him.