by Ben Bussey
If you’ll forgive me for using a dirty word in my opening sentence… remake. Yes, yes, I know. In the hotbed of first world problems that is movie fandom, surely no subject is the cause of as much debate in this day and age, as for most of the past decade the internet has been ablaze with accusations of filmmakers raping our childhoods and wantonly slaughtering every available sacred cow. So high do these emotions run that now and again we forget things were not always this way. Back in the good old 80s, a fair number of cherished genre classics were also revisited, in many cases to great effect. Most obvious of these are, of course, The Thing and The Fly, two 50s sci-fi shockers given a contemporary makeover – and, most will agree, significantly improved upon – by John Carpenter and David Cronenberg respectively. Less widely known but still well loved by many is Chuck Russell’s take on The Blob. However, one that doesn’t seem to get the same kind of acknowledgement is the film that celebrates its thirtieth birthday today; Paul Schrader’s remake of the highly regarded Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur 1942 classic Cat People.
It’s not really too surprising that the Cat People remake isn’t so widely spoken of in fanboy circles. It has a female protagonist, a somewhat abstract tone, and only sporadic moments of gore and creature effects. Not to imply that fanboys are anti-intellectual by nature, but if a film defies easy description and isn’t specifically designed to appeal to young men, it tends to get swept under the carpet; I’ll admit, for that very reason I had pondered whether I should write this retrospective, uncertain as to whether or not the film is of interest to our (wince) core demographic. But the long and short of it is, whether the 1982 Cat People is highly regarded within horror fandom or not – it damn well should be. If remakes must keep being made – and, let’s not delude ourselves, they will – then the filmmakers responsible would do well to consider Schrader’s take on Lewton/Tourneur. It does what all remakes should set out to do: revise the central conceit for a contemporary audience, and make it stand apart as a unique and interesting piece of work in its own right. On top of that, it is a kind of film that is so rarely allowed to get made these days: a genuinely adult fantasy, not simply in the sense that it features lots of sex (though of course it does), but in that it is specifically oriented towards a grown-up audience, reflecting grown-up concerns, rather than the typically adolescent sensibilities that tend to dominate genre films (a comment, not a slur).
I gather Lewton purists tend not to look too kindly upon this remake, and that’s no great shocker. The original is commonly upheld as a masterpiece of subtle psychological horror, in which the monsters remain unseen, and the true nature of proceedings – whether they are indeed supernatural, or simply a symptom of the protagonist’s mental state – is left ambiguous. Many labels can be applied to the American cinema of the 1980s, but subtle is not amongst them. Schrader’s film, working from Alan Ormsby’s script (the first time Schrader worked from a script that was not his own, though I understand he did some uncredited rewrites), leaves us in no doubt whatsoever that our heroine Irena (Nastassja Kinski) and her long-lost brother Paul (Malcolm McDowell) are indeed werecats who transform fully into black leopards after having sex, and may only revert to human form once they have fed on human flesh. And, this again being a product of the 80s, there’s never any doubt that we are going to see the sex, the transformations, and the death, in lingering graphic detail. This includes several gory eviscerations, explicit incestuous advances from McDowell (the cat people can only safely bone their own kin, don’t you know), plus a liberal smattering of BDSM, and frequent full frontal nudity from Ms Kinski. Even in the swimming pool scene – one of the few moments directly recreated from the original – the most notable difference is that this time around Alice (Annette O’Toole) is topless. Broken down this way, the whole enterprise probably sounds as tasteless and puerile as Jan De Bont’s CGI-saturated take on Robert Wise’s The Haunting (Wise himself, of course, having been a protégé of Lewton).
So, should we dismiss Cat People ‘82 as just another Boobs, Beasts and Blood movie, then? Well, no doubt the film would score highly on the Joe Bob Briggs scale, but Humanoids from the Deep this assuredly is not (again, not a slur). Just because this film makes explicit that which was left ambiguous in the original does not mean we are supposed to take any of it on face value. The poster (pictured above) labels it ‘an Erotic Fantasy.’ Let’s focus on the fantasy element for now. It may not mark itself out as so clearly make-believe as, say, Neil Jordan’s nightmarish fantasia The Company of Wolves, with which it does share some thematic territory, but Schrader is not presenting us with a reflection of the real world here. Even within the context of the more ostensibly naturalistic moments in New Orleans, there is much that does not fall within the grounds of reality; for starters, how many zoos have you ever been to where the only barrier between yourself and the animals was the bars, meaning you could literally reach in and touch them if you wanted to? And, for that matter, how many zoos have such awesome big cat sculptures that make the place feel more like a pagan temple than a tourist attraction?
Perhaps it should go without saying that we should not take any of this literally. After all, I rather doubt anyone would interpret the film as trying to warn us of the genuine existence of werecats. It might be warning us, much in the manner of a great many vampire tales, to be wary of getting into bed with strangers; after all, this was the early 80s, and we all know what sexually transmitted disease was rearing its ugly head at the time. For the unfortunate massage parlor employee and blonde funeral mourner who encounter McDowell, the ravenous black leopard released by sex might just as well be AIDS. But as easy as it is to make that connection with any 80s film that juxtaposes the carnal and the terminal, it isn’t casual sex that is the real object of fear in Cat People. Rather, the real monster of the piece, the big bad menace lurking in the shadows threatening all and sundry, is love. This isn’t the warm, fuzzy, liberating love that the 60s wanted to save the world with; this is a crippling, smothering, painful thing that consumes all who fall under its shadow. As soon as it begins to surface between Irena and zoo curator Oliver (John Heard), it is clear things are going to go from bad to worse.
Now let’s consider the other half of that poster tagline; yes, the ‘erotic’ part. I’ve always found erotic a very strange word, perhaps down to how commonly misused it is in application to anything that involves sex; say, all those repetitive Sharon Stone or Shannon Tweed movies which generally present intercourse as a performance sport, the performers on the whole too infatuated with themselves to be particularly appealing to watch (remember Stone and Stallone in The Specialist? Shudder.) There’s a different vibe to Cat People, owing in no small part to the casting. Nastassja Kinski was an inspired choice for Irena; as a European actress not speaking in her native tongue, she is wholly believable as a stranger in a strange land, on top of which her short hair and slender figure lend her a certain androgyny which, while it may clearly flag the film as a product of the gender-bending early 80s, makes her stand out that bit more, particularly by comparison with Annette O’Toole’s softer-bodied, long-haired all-American girl. Also, Kinski’s sharp features and piercing eyes are, appropriately enough, somewhat feline, which doesn’t hurt. Even so, she has an unassuming quality which makes you believe she could be entirely unwitting in attracting the lust of others, and just about convinces you that she could indeed be a virgin. Without wishing to get too Freudian about it all (Schrader left his wife for Kinski during production) the film takes a slow-burn approach, lulling us to gradually fall in love with Kinski; while her naked body is a familiar sight by the end, its first appearance is not until over an hour in.
Meanwhile, casting the very English and very theatrical Malcolm McDowell as Irena’s long lost brother Paul was an interesting move; he too is a natural outsider in New Orleans, yet more comfortable with it, much as he is considerably more at ease with his animal nature. Part of the pleasure in watching Cat People now is recalling the days when McDowell still had an air of danger about him, long before he began sleepwalking his way through the likes of Star Trek: Generations and the Halloween remake. As mannered and unnatural as his performance here is, it’s really quite unnerving; Paul comes across as being largely unconcerned with how people regard him, and leaves the viewer wondering just what he might do next. Once again, there’s a tremendous contrast between the un-American Cat Person and the All-American guy John Heard. Where one is an animal, the other seeks only to contain animals and observe them from a safe distance, leading to the fairly surprising and haunting climax; as previously mentioned, the film takes a less than sunny view of romantic love, which the finale really hammers home. But rest easy thrill seekers, there are more than a few kinky moments before that; after all, if your lover would transform into a carnivorous beast after sex, what choice would you have but to tie her up? If you’re seeing Cat People for the first time, you’ll never be able to look at the dad in Home Alone quite the same way afterwards.
Whilst in the current climate another Cat People remake wouldn’t seem too unlikely, I very much doubt it would look much like this if it was made today, even with the likes of True Blood on our TV screens. Sex and gore might not be a problem, but filmmakers still seem too anxious to spell out the meaning for us in black and white; anything that requires the viewer to do a bit of work, Inception notwithstanding, is a tough sell nowadays. This being so, it’s even harder to believe that the executive producer on Cat People was Jerry Bruckheimer, pioneer of the obvious. Still, while this particular film might not be deliberately dumbed down for the masses, it still wears a heavy veneer of 80s gloss, from the garish colour scheme (note particularly the dusky reds of the savannah dream sequences), to the brooding synth score of Giorgio Moroder. It’s easy now to look upon these flourishes and laugh, dismissing it all as kitsch, but if we can hold that impulse at bay there is a genuinely powerful atmosphere here, not too far removed from early Michael Mann; it’s much the same vibe Nicholas Winding Refn did his utmost to tap into with Drive. And finally, there’s David Bowie’s theme song. For many of us, it’s now hard to hear without thinking of Inglourious Basterds, but it perfectly encapsulates the tone of Cat People: simmering with sexual tension and oblique symbolism, a bizarre and potent blend of the tribal and the metropolitan, just a whisper away from high camp. Much like the song, the film itself is clearly not going to be to all tastes; but if it resonates with you, it may well linger in your memory, coming back to haunt you for reasons you can’t quite explain.
Now, if only a few of the remakes that keep flooding our way year after year could manage to have a similar impact, we’d have a great deal less to complain about. Having said that, Paul Schrader’s Cat People also serves to remind us we shouldn’t always be so bloody precious about what gets remade (yes, I’m addressing myself as much as the reader here). As various sensible souls have tried to remind us, the original film will always be there, so really there’s no sense in getting pissed off; and, yes, the results might sadly follow the lead of Platinum Dunes and wind up as cookie cutter dirge of the worst kind, but if we’re very lucky they just might wind up being genuinely daring, unorthodox films which take the concept, and the viewer, to places they had not previously imagined. I’m not about to hold my breath, but if the filmmakers behind the next wave of remakes (I’m looking in your direction Kimberly Pierce, recently announced director of Carrie) can take a leaf out of Schrader’s book, they’ve got my blessing.
And can you believe I managed to write this whole thing up without a single cheap ‘pussy’ joke…