31 Nights of Horror Cat People

Platform: HBO Max

Director: Jacques Tourneur

Release Year: 1942

Watch Date: October 20, 2023

My Rating:

I love old movies. And black and white movies are fun because you can imagine any color scheme you want. I’d never seen this movie before now. It was beautiful. I love the days when movies relied on the actors' acting skills and the creative skills of props and effects. These days, movies rely more heavily on CGI and big effects.

In this movie, a Serbian woman (Irena) meets an American man (Oliver) at the zoo, and they start seeing each other. Irena is afraid to let him get close because she is afraid that she will turn into a cat if she gets intimate with him. Oliver asks her to marry him, and they have a lovely wedding. And more than a month later, they still haven’t had sex or even kissed.

Oliver is bothered that Irena believes in a legend about a King, witches, and cat people…..so naturally, he suggests that she see a psychiatrist. Insert major groan and eye-roll here. Typical 1940’s man……ugh. The psychiatrist thinks the belief stems from her childhood and something that happened to her mother. She comes home to find Her husband and his coworker Alice, and Alice asks how her appointment was. Which, of course, upsets Irena. It would have upset me, too. There are some things you don’t talk about with your coworkers!

Oliver only gets more slimy. Alice admits that she loves him, and he continues to get upset with Irena because she keeps telling them what will happen if she feels too strong of emotions. Irena becomes jealous of Alice and stalks her as a cat person. Oliver, Alice, and the doctor (who has already made a pass at Irena) conspire to have her committed, even though that means Oliver won’t be able to divorce Irena (apparently, you can’t divorce an insane person).

Irena must have caught wind of the plan because she isn’t home when the group goes to confront her. They wait for over an hour before Oliver and Alice return to work. Doctor McCreepy stays behind to be there when Irena comes home. Irena does come home, and the doctor kisses her even though she has already told him she wouldn’t like that (cringe). She turns into a Jaguar and kills him but is pierced through with a sword at the same time. The sword breaks and stays in her.

Irena goes to the zoo and lets the jaguar out but then collapses on the ground and dies. Oliver and Alice show up. In a dumbfounded tone, Oliver says, “She wasn’t lying to us.” No freaking crap Sherlock! Way to be quick to judgment because it was outside your scope of knowing [insert giant eye-roll here]. Sometimes, I love old movies and other times, they remind me of the continued oppression of women by this patriarchal society.

The cinematography was stunning, and the storyline was actually pretty good. But those good old-fashioned 1940s values really ruined it for me. I will not be watching this movie again. I’m going to need to follow it up with some good 80s horror ridiculousness.

Photo Credit: imdb.com