Movie to watch on Halloween - 4
Cat People (1942) is considered a great Halloween movie due to its masterful use of suggestion and suspense over explicit scares, its atmospheric and creepy tone, and its sophisticated exploration of themes like fear, desire, and most of all, sexuality. It recounts the story of Irena Dubrovna (played by Simone Simon), a newly married Serbian fashion illustrator obsessed with the idea that she's possibly a descendant of an ancient tribe of so-called "Cat People" who mysteriously metamorphose themselves into black panthers when aroused.
Production of the movie began thus in 1942, when Val Lewton was placed in charge of developing RKO's low-budget horror films. He brought together a team of filmmakers that he had worked with in the past, including director Jacques Tourneur, editor Mark Robson and screenwriter DeWitt Bodeen. This particular movie uses masterfully psychological horror, creating suspense and dread through atmospheric visuals rather than jump scares. Its iconic use of shadows, sounds, and false scares to build up tension, like during the excellent swimming pool sequence, still hold up today.
Simone Simon was perfect in her role with both a very strong screen presence and believable acting. When the character of her husband Oliver Reed (played by Kent Smith) begins to show interest in one of his female co-workers, a certain Alice Moore played by Jane Randolph, Irena starts to stalk her. Altogether it's one very well made movie, with beautiful cinematography and the sets (most of them being reused sets from previous films such as The Magnificent Ambersons) are hauntingly sumptuous. Simon's performance is also noted for its subtle, cat-like mannerisms, fitting the movie's innovative and chilling style.
The swimming pool scene demonstrates precisely what there's to love about this movie and the performance of the main actresses. Alice is finishing up a swim at the local pool when all of a sudden she sees a shadowy figure in the exit. With nowhere to escape, she dives back into the pool as, all around her, shadows move along the walls and cat snarls mount tension and fear. Finally, the lights turn on only to reveal Irena standing at the edge of the pool, danger seemingly averted. Alice’s robe, however, has been mysteriously shredded to pieces.
Some critics consider that it’s a movie about forbidden sexuality and shrinking away from intimacy too, just because Irena’s curse is so easy to read as a stand-in for lesbianism or rather the sexuality that defines any female soul. There's indeed much more to this movie than one can discover on first view because of this underlining psychological treatment of sexuality and horror. Overall, the movie relies on such purely cinematic techniques like clever editing, lighting, and sound design to create the tension, making it a classic of the horror genre that influenced many later filmmakers
[media=https://youtu.be/VgB0BdjX_Fg]
Production of the movie began thus in 1942, when Val Lewton was placed in charge of developing RKO's low-budget horror films. He brought together a team of filmmakers that he had worked with in the past, including director Jacques Tourneur, editor Mark Robson and screenwriter DeWitt Bodeen. This particular movie uses masterfully psychological horror, creating suspense and dread through atmospheric visuals rather than jump scares. Its iconic use of shadows, sounds, and false scares to build up tension, like during the excellent swimming pool sequence, still hold up today.
Simone Simon was perfect in her role with both a very strong screen presence and believable acting. When the character of her husband Oliver Reed (played by Kent Smith) begins to show interest in one of his female co-workers, a certain Alice Moore played by Jane Randolph, Irena starts to stalk her. Altogether it's one very well made movie, with beautiful cinematography and the sets (most of them being reused sets from previous films such as The Magnificent Ambersons) are hauntingly sumptuous. Simon's performance is also noted for its subtle, cat-like mannerisms, fitting the movie's innovative and chilling style.
The swimming pool scene demonstrates precisely what there's to love about this movie and the performance of the main actresses. Alice is finishing up a swim at the local pool when all of a sudden she sees a shadowy figure in the exit. With nowhere to escape, she dives back into the pool as, all around her, shadows move along the walls and cat snarls mount tension and fear. Finally, the lights turn on only to reveal Irena standing at the edge of the pool, danger seemingly averted. Alice’s robe, however, has been mysteriously shredded to pieces.
Some critics consider that it’s a movie about forbidden sexuality and shrinking away from intimacy too, just because Irena’s curse is so easy to read as a stand-in for lesbianism or rather the sexuality that defines any female soul. There's indeed much more to this movie than one can discover on first view because of this underlining psychological treatment of sexuality and horror. Overall, the movie relies on such purely cinematic techniques like clever editing, lighting, and sound design to create the tension, making it a classic of the horror genre that influenced many later filmmakers
[media=https://youtu.be/VgB0BdjX_Fg]
