I thought I should bump up this cult movie, especially for those younger forumites who might have missed it.
It was filmed in 1982 by Paul Schrader staring Nastasia Kinski, Malcolm Mc Dowel and John Heard. Giorgio Moroder and David Bowie signed the music score.
The movie is actually remake of 1942 horror of the same title, with pretty lame story.
The main protagonist is Irena, descendant of a family afflicted by the curse of Cat People. Long time ago these people use to sacrifice virgins to big black panthers. Instead of killing the virgins, panthers actually mated with them producing cat people who are doomed to incest or otherwise turn to man killing big cats. Could it be worse then this? Yes, in the first version the origins of Cat people are set in Balkans ( although nobody explains what were big black panthers doing in medieval Serbia) while in the 80-ies version origins are more appropriately linked to Africa although not very clearly.
The 40-ies version is just lame and pretty boring, termed as fantasy horror but will give you hardly any thrills.
In contrast 80-ies version, although following the lines of the same, utterly stupid plot is simply a cinematographic masterpiece. It is also classified as horror but I never thought of this movie as such. There are some gory bits but I would classify it as impossible love story rather then horror.
So if the story is so lame - what is so good about this movie? Well pretty much everything else, special effects, the atmosphere, the colors, the music, the casting, the feel of New Orleans and Louisiana. Its one of those movies where the atmosphere completely absorbs you.
I know its a bit of a stretch but I could draw parallel with a book Alexandrian Quartet by Lawrenece Durell for that is another master piece with virtually no plot, but with so rich atmosphere that you will glide over 800 pages effortlessly.
Definitely 9 stars out of 10.
And here is the little teaser - Irena's Dream/Accepting the fate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wPpYVKUlCg
It was filmed in 1982 by Paul Schrader staring Nastasia Kinski, Malcolm Mc Dowel and John Heard. Giorgio Moroder and David Bowie signed the music score.
The movie is actually remake of 1942 horror of the same title, with pretty lame story.
The main protagonist is Irena, descendant of a family afflicted by the curse of Cat People. Long time ago these people use to sacrifice virgins to big black panthers. Instead of killing the virgins, panthers actually mated with them producing cat people who are doomed to incest or otherwise turn to man killing big cats. Could it be worse then this? Yes, in the first version the origins of Cat people are set in Balkans ( although nobody explains what were big black panthers doing in medieval Serbia) while in the 80-ies version origins are more appropriately linked to Africa although not very clearly.
The 40-ies version is just lame and pretty boring, termed as fantasy horror but will give you hardly any thrills.
In contrast 80-ies version, although following the lines of the same, utterly stupid plot is simply a cinematographic masterpiece. It is also classified as horror but I never thought of this movie as such. There are some gory bits but I would classify it as impossible love story rather then horror.
So if the story is so lame - what is so good about this movie? Well pretty much everything else, special effects, the atmosphere, the colors, the music, the casting, the feel of New Orleans and Louisiana. Its one of those movies where the atmosphere completely absorbs you.
I know its a bit of a stretch but I could draw parallel with a book Alexandrian Quartet by Lawrenece Durell for that is another master piece with virtually no plot, but with so rich atmosphere that you will glide over 800 pages effortlessly.
Definitely 9 stars out of 10.
And here is the little teaser - Irena's Dream/Accepting the fate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wPpYVKUlCg
