31 DAYS OF HORROR - Day 15: MANIAC (2012)

The lonely, warped world of antique manikin restorer Frank Zito (Elijah Wood).

Frank Zito (Elijah Wood) runs a shop where he professionally restores antique manikins with a skilled hand. Unfortunately, Frank is a schizophrenic whose spells are kept temporarily at bay by oral medication, but when he's off his meds he stalks the nighttime streets of trendy Los Angeles for female prey. Traumatized by his wild prostitute mother, who made him watch her servicing johns when he was a child, Frank developed a twisted infantile sexuality from observing his mom at work servicing men with wanton abandon from where he was stashed in a closet, and even on the street. Frank desires female companionship and nurture, and he searches for a woman who will provide both and not abandon him, and he even resorts to a dating website in search of his hoped-for connection. But Frank's self-perception is literally as genital-free as his manikins, as evidenced by a glimpse into his mind, and since he cannot perform sexually in an adult manner, fear and anger take over, and his razor-sharp hunting knife serves as his none-too-subtle surrogate penis. 

Frank's murderous spree bloodily rages for weeks, with the slayings all pointing to the same killer due to his habit of removing his victims' scalps to take home as adornments for the smooth pates of the manikins he keeps as companions and "girlfriends."

 The victim whose savage slaying most shattered my heart: sweet, bubbly, and sexually-forward  bartender Lucie (Megan M. Duffy), lured to Frank via a dating site. None of Frank's targets deserved their fate, but her least of all. A great and truly tragic performance.

Frank notices Anna (Nora Arnezeder), a French art and fashion photographer snapping pictures of the manikins on display in his storefront window, and the pair strike up a friendship, connecting as one artist to another. Frank falls for Anna and stays on target with his medication in hope that their friendship will become something more. But the beast inside Frank cannot be so easily brought to heal, and it's only a matter of time until the narrative culminates in tragedy for all involved.

Basically a beat-for-beat remake of the infamous 1980 slasher landmark, albeit with a few nods toward 21st Century modernity and a location shift from New York to Los Angeles, the 2012 take on MANIAC is superior to the original in every conceivable way. Instead of being a simple gut bucket splatter orgy, the remake replaces the original's squalid look and tone with sharp cinematography and clever camera compositions that instantly communicate that this is a French-made arthouse thriller with Euro-cinema sensibilities. It's graphic, in fact very graphic, yes, but it somehow lacks the finger-down-the throat queaziness of the 1980 take. This time around, Frank is genuinely sympathetic despite his horrific crimes, and effect no doubt bolstered by the casting of cherub-faced Elijah would in the role. He always looks sad, terrified, and helpless, and unlike Joe Spinell's sweaty, overweight slob iteration, the audience wants to see Frank somehow stop his spree and get the help that he so sorely needs, whereas Spinell's version was the puppet of a script with nothing on its mind other than moving from one lurid set piece of butchery to the next with no real plot to speak of. Elijah Wood, on the other hand, was given an intelligent script that's a character study with accents of some of the most impressively realistic gore I have yet seen. It's a completely different approach than  practical effects legend Tom Savini's realism-eschewing effects that favor an E.C. Comics/ carnival spookshow sensibility over sanguinary verisimilitude.

An horrific tour de force of Théâtre du Grand-Guignol-style gruesomeness.

 

The performances are all top notch and marked by their honest vulnerability and bravery in enacting what's being depicted. Frank's victims resonate more soundly than the mere slaughter-fodder of 1980, and the love story builds organically, instead of suddenly being shoehorned in from out of nowhere with just thirty minutes left to go. We care about what happens between Frank and Anna, unlike what we got between Joe Spinell and Caroline Munro. When comparing that element in the two films, I am convinced that Caroline Munro was cast solely so Joe Spinell could have her up nubile lusciousness against him as love interest. Her inclusion amounts to little more than rote and gratuitous padding that derails what little narrative thrust there is in the original.

 

Anna (Nora Arnezeder) photographs Frank's work process with genuine admiration, thus laying the seeds of doomed romance.

 

The super-depressing atmosphere and overall feel of the 1980 version is gone, which is fine by me, because that film's unpleasantness overwhelmed me with its crushing darkness, seeming revelry in its misogyny. I can take a lot of nastiness, but there's just something so grubby and "off" about that film that makes me feel bad, and even though I watch a lot of cinema that contains violence and assorted degradation of the human experience, I easily parse those works as just entertainment, luridness and sleaze factor notwithstanding, whereas the 1980 MANIAC struck me as possibly a look into the unfettered and better left unexpressed inner musings of its creator, a place I was not comfortable visiting. 

 

Directed by Franck Khalfoun from a screenplay by Alexandre Aja and Gregory Levasseur, the remake clearly was helmed by creative minds that respected its audience and sought to craft a solid psychological shocker whose mayhem was framed with more in its dark little head than simply pointing the camera at whatever was set up to explode or bleed during a given shot. There is artistry on display here that renders the visceral content palatable despite its hideous excess, and nearly the entire film is seen from the direct visual perspective of Frank. You'll note that he is only seen from another's direct viewpoint only a few times over the course of the narrative, as at all other moments the camera shows us Frank's world through his POV. If we see Frank's face directly, it's only via flashbacks, his mind's unstable imaginings, or as reflected in mirrors or other surfaces. 

 

Reflection of madness.

 

But unlike the countless slasher films that allowed us to witness the horror though the killer's eyes, sensitivity is granted to what we experience from Frank's gaze, and at no point is there a sense of getting off via vicarious identification with a murder machine. Frank is all-too-human and vulnerable with his child's sexuality, and placing us in his shoes only serves to drive home his tragic helplessness, misery, loneliness, and implacable inevitable doom. We are there with Frank as his life spirals down its hellish path, and it's a very effective grabbing of the audience by the collective collar and shaking us out of the usual passive complacency of the usual in-the-dark popcorn-munching enjoyment of simulated slaughter.

So, I found MANIAC 2012 to be an unexpected gem, a modern classic that blows its template out of the water in smoldering chunks, and for the life of me I cannot fathom why it is not more of a steadily discussed and analyze cause celebre among film buffs in general and horror aficionados in particular. This one gets my nod as this year's pick of the litter so far, and I cannot recommend it enough. Provided you are up for its tragedy and spectacular and visceral charnel house set pieces. A+ 

Poster for the theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2024-Day 14: MANIAC (1980)

Portrait of a tortured soul and mind. 

Middle-aged Frank Zito (Joe Spinell) suffers with major parental abandonment issues due to his mother being killed in a car accident when he was a child, yet also harbors unfulfilled love and need for her. Tortured by memorizes of childhood abuse at the hands of his slatternly mother, Frank frequently moans like a needy toddler, crying out for his mommy to comfort him while he promises to be a good boy. He is loath to leave his tiny flat, because he knows that once he is on the streets, his sublimated anger and loneliness takes the wheel and the savage serial killer is unleashed to stalk the streets of New York City at the end of the disco era, murdering and scalping women during a killing spree that makes the headlines and holds the city's women in abject terror.

                                                   Just one of many gruesome trophies.

Zito tacks his victims' bloody scalps to the heads of manikins that he keeps in his apartment as company and bed mates to whom he vents his warped thoughts with the intent of "preserving" them in hope that they will never leave him. 

Barbie's Beauty Center, eat your heart out. 

A small ray of hope appears when Frank is photographed in a park by Anna (Caroline Munro), a professional photographer. Frank strikes up a chaste relationship with her, and she listens when he expounds on his philosophies regarding art as a means of preserving its human subjects, and during their time together Frank reveals that he is capable of healthy human interaction and connection. But while a charming romance blossoms, Frank remains driven by his demons when not with Anna, so his murderous activities continue. In the end, madness proves more powerful than attraction, as Frank attempts to kill Anna. She escapes and presumably alerts the authorities, so Frank makes his way back to his apartment, where his harem of manikins suddenly come to life and wreak vengeance upon him by dismembering him on his bed and tearing off his head. Two cops arrive on the scene and find the manikins in their usual positions around the flat, and an intact but gut-stabbed Frank seemingly dead on his mattress. When they exit the apartment, Franks eyes pop open... And the credits roll.

Arguably the most infamous and controversial of the first wave slasher films of the 1980's, MANIAC was the gore movie that every gorehound kid wanted to see, due to its heavy rep for being the bloodiest movie of its time. Sporting practical effects by Tom Savini, who had so solidly delivered the goods in the apocalyptic DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978) and FRIDAY THE 13th (1980), the film was pretty much designed as a showcase for ultra-explicit charnel house spectacle, and in that department the film certainly put its money where its mouth was. Released unrated, which relegated the film to inner city grindhouses, sleazy drive-ins, and "arthouse" cinemas, MANIAC wastes zero time in getting down to the business of killing. We get two murders before we even get to the opening credits, a slashed throat and a garotting, to be specific, and for the next fifty minutes we are taken along on an odyssey of stalking and murder as conveyed from the killer's insane point of view. Veteran character actor Joe Spinell co-wrote the screenplay and came up with the basic story, and in doing so he gives himself the opportunity to enact what is no doubt his darkest role. Instead of the usual faceless killing machines that overran the screen during the '80's slasher boom, Frank Zito is examined in intimate, tragic detail, and though we are clearly shown that he is a monster, one cannot help but understand and feel for this man who was destroyed as a child. This certainly is not a pleasant film by any stretch of the imagination, but it's absolutely worth seeing for Spinell's convincing turn as the sweaty, heavy-breathing, infantile Zito, a man whose murder spree is motivated not by sexuality, but by the most warped need for female nurture.

I first saw MANIAC when I was sixteen, when it was part of one of the legendary Scream All Night festivals at Norwalk, Connecticut's Sono Cinema during its wild and woolly days, an event that was my first all-night movie marathon. (If memory serves, I drifted off to sleep somewhere around 5am, but I did see all of MANIC and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE.) As previously mentioned, MANIAC was the gore film to see that year, and if all that one wanted was bloody nastiness, one would not be disappointed, but the film in many way exemplified all of the complaints that detractors levied against the entire slasher sub-genre. Though more competently crafted than the majority of its brethren, MANIAC really has no plot to speak of until Caroline Munro enters the narrative, and even then she' barely a presence. It's just kill after kill after kill, most in loving and lurid closeup, with a spectacular head being blown off at point blank range with a double-barreled shotgun. 

The only exploding head that bests this effect is the legendary bit that opens David Cronenberg's SCANNERS (1981).

Other than the effects, the film's saving grace is Spinell's performance as Frank Zito, an indelible part that will make you want to take a shower after the end credits roll.

MANIAC is a grubby, squalid effort that I am surprised to find that I appreciate more today, after seeing it in its entirety for the first time in 43 years, and I do recommend it for all scholars of the genre. That said, it's quite unpleasant, unrelentingly humorless and depressing, and isn't what I would consider fun. Having seen it again for this refresher, I can see no reason to return to it in future. Also, while its effects were quite shocking in their day, they have since been outdone many, many times over, so if seen for the first time from the perspective of nearly 45 after years after the fact, newcomers can be forgiven for asking just what the big deal was. 

Oh, and look for 1970's porn mainstay Sharon "Mitch" Mitchell as a nurse. I did not know who she was back in 1981, but I sure as hell know who she is now. I recognized her on sight, thanks to her cute face that is famously offset by her delightful big nose. She is always welcome on my screen. 

The adorable '70's porno legend Sharon Mitchell, as Nurse #2. She's in the film for less than a minute, but I perked up when she appeared.

                                                 The iconic poster from the theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2024 -Day 13: RENFIELD (2024)

Giving new dimension to the phrase "Dracula sucks." (The character, not the movie.)

Robert Montague Renfield is a name familiar to anyone who knows the lore of Count Dracula as depicted in the classic 1931 Universal horror film starring Bela Lugosi. In the early 20th Century, Renfield (Nicholas Hoult), a British solicitor, is hired to broker a real estate deal for Count Dracula (Nicolas Cage), who seeks to set up residence in England, and once within the Count's Transylvanian castle to settle the paperwork, Renfield's journey into undying horror begins when he discovers that his host is a vampire. And not just any old undead suckface, either. Count Dracula is possibly the most evil creature on the planet, and poor Renfield is subjugated to his will as Dracula's pathetic slave. Through periodic infusions of his diabolical master's blood and the ingestion of bugs (apparently his main form of sustenance), Renfield gains the gifts of immortality, impossibly fast reflexes, physics-defying agility, super-strength, and hand-to-hand combat acumen unlike anything previously seen by man, and he has used those powers to procure victims for Dracula to feed on for the past 90 years or so. Hopelessly enslaved by Dracula, Renfield lost his family and home, traveling to wherever Dracula finds himself after his latest routing by vampire hunters and making sure that the master's coffin is protected during the daytime. And it's bad enough that he's the complete and utter bitch of the undead aristocrat, but insult accompanies injury as Renfield's existence is one of being Dracula's favorite target for vicious psychological and emotional abuse. The Count strips down Renfield's dignity and self-esteem at every turn, and their domestic situation is the very textbook example of a toxic relationship, and there appears to be neither any end in sight nor a way out.

Skip to 2023. In the wake of their latest run-in with vampire hunters, a confrontation that nearly ends Dracula, the pair relocate to New Orleans, and Renfield once more hits the streets in search of victims to sate his master's insatiable blood lust. At some point Renfield encounters a 12-step program for people in toxic co-dependent couples, and while there the seeds are planted for him bolstering his self-esteem and taking back the reins of his life. But first, moved by the stories of mistreatment related by his fellow 12-steppers, Renfield resolves to kill two birds with one stone and eliminate his fellow sufferer's abusive "monsters" by chloroforming them and dragging them back to Dracula's lair, where his regenerating master can feed on them at his leisure while Renfield suffers no guilt. 

While out hunting an abuser who, unbeknownst to Renfield, stole a sizeable amount of cocaine from the Lobo crime family, Renfield decimates the abusive lover, his cohorts, and the hulking Leatherface-like professional killer "Apache Joe," who was sent by cowardly asshole mob prince Teddy Lobo (Ben Schwartz) to kill the coke thieves and retrieves the goods. Terrified by the gory takedown that he witnesses, Lobo flees the scene and blows through a sobriety checkpoint manned by cop Rebecca Quincy (Awkwafina), and is promptly apprehended. Teddy is released in short order, which pisses Officer Quincy off to no end because Lobo killed her father, an exemplary policeman who inspired his daughter to join the force, and she harbors an obsession with taking down Tony Lobo and his entire crime family.

When Renfield brings home his haul of bodies for Dracula's feast, the Count berates him for bringing him what is in essence trash, and sends him out again to find blood that is "pure." Renfield cruises a restaurant for suitable fodder, and at that moment the paths of Tony Lobo, Officer Quincy, and Renfield cross in a spectacularly gory shootout/kung fu fight wherein Quincy and Renfield lay waste to a small army of heavily-armed Lobo goons. Renfield's moves are nothing short of astonishing, and when the dust settles, the restaurant is strew with corpses and body parts, and Renfield and Quicy, now heroes, acknowledge each other with respect. Teddy Lobo, however, has escaped, and he now, on orders from his mob boss mother, Bellafrancesca Lobo (Shohreh Aghdashloo), seeks to avenge his wounded pride by hunting down the mysterious super-badass who wiped out his hit squad. 

His confidence bolstered by his heroic reduction of the hit squad to sandwich spread, Renfield takes the lessons of the 12-step program to heart. He moves out, gets his own apartment, buys colorful new clothes, and in general sets out to fix his life. But he still has to contend with Dracula, who is none-too-pleased at his whipping boy's change in attitude. Upon finding out about the 12-step program, Dracula crashes an evening session and kills all present, leaving a blood-drenched Renfield to be discovered by Officer Quicny and her partner, who automatically assume that Renfield was the killer. But shit really hits the fan when Teddy invades Dracula's lair with another gaggle of hitmen in search of Renfield, and Dracula,  who has been using his regeneration period to begin planning world domination, joins forces with the Lobos and grants Teddy the vampiric "gift," which finally gives him the means to become the badass he always fancied himself as.From there, the mayhem only escalates, and Renfield and Quincy find themselves wanted fugitives. With no other option, the pair team up and take the fight to the fortified stronghold of the Lobo family, where they engage in a final insanely violent showdown with the mob and the Lord of vampires.

Ignoring the fate of Renfield in the classic 1931 Dracula film, RENFIELD can be taken as a direct sequel to the Bela Lugosi horror landmark, the film that lit the fuse of the Universal monster cycle during Hollywood's golden age. Though gory as hell, the film is a pitch-perfect black somdey, and a damned funny one at that. The entire cast is perfect, even Awkwafina, whose presence usually sinks movies for me, and and let us not forget that this is a Universal release, so I say it's a rightful heir to the Universal Monsters pedigree while at the same time taking the piss out of it. Horror comedies are a dicey proposition and they more often than not fail at both flavors, but this film absolutely nails the tightrope walk of laughs and scares.

But if I had to single out the one absolute selling point of the film (aside from the amusingly excessive torrent of spewing blood, offal, and severed body parts), it's the stunning performance of Nicolas Cage as Count Dracula. I love Cage anyway, for his cornucopia of over-the-top roles, and his full-tilt crazy histrionics liven up even the worst of the films that he's in, so casting him as Dracula and turning him loose with the material was a stroke of genius. Cage's Dracula is simultaneously howlingly hilarious and utterly terrifying, and I hope his performance here is at least given a nod when it's time for Oscar nominations. He's mean, manipulative, selfish, slyly playful and seductive, and, above all, just a total bastard to poor Renfield. In short, he's simply perfect and the film would not have been half as good without him. No lie, comedic interpretation or not, Cage's Dracula may just be my favorite take on the character.

Nicloas Cage pulls off a bravura performance as Count Dracula, seen here in a dead-on accurate recreation of Bela Lugosi in DRACULA (1931), managing to be simultaneously pants-pissingly hilarious and absolutely terrifying. 

So, I heartily recommend RENFIELD, especially if you are already well-versed in the classic Universal films, and also as a damned good vampire movie in its own right. I will definitely be adding this to my DVD library, where it will occupy a place of honor, right next to my set of all of the Universal monster flicks.

Poster for the theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2024 - Day 12: ABIGAIL (2024)

 

A professionally orchestrated kidnapping goes horribly, HORRIBLY wrong. 

 12-year-old ballerina Abigail (Alisha Weir) is kidnapped by six professionals, each of whom was hired for a special skill set, with their employer's mission statement being that the child will be ransomed to her father for the sum of fifty-million dollars. After smoothly pulling off the kidnapping, they take the girl to the father's lush mansion and await a response to their demands while the girl is kept drugged in one of the mansion's bedrooms. The kidnappers, in a bid for them to have as little information on each other as possible if they should get caught, are each assigned an alias based on members of the Rat Pack. The crew member who is given the alias of "Joey" (Melissa Barrera) is a former Army medic (and current junkie) who is trying to recover, and she is tasked with caring for Abigail while she is their captive. Joey is a tortured soul, but she is kind and in the throes of missing the young son she. abandoned due to her problems, so when dealing with Abigail, Joey's motherly instincts allow her to connect with the girl.

The simple act of kindness that is the pinky swear.

The crew are told they will be in the house overnight, but while settling in they are informed that Abigail is that daughter of one Kristof Lazaar, an international crime lord of fearsome renown, who has a legendary hitman named Valdez in his stable, a hitman with a savage and demonic reputation. Upon hearing of this, the crew is terror-stricken, and several of them opt to just leave and forfeit their cut of the ransom. But as they hit the exits, the entire house seals itself off with bars and shutters two inches thick blocking all egress. Clearly, they have been set up in a trap, but the question is why? Then things get weird, as one of their number is found decapitated by an unknown killer. Is it the infamous Valdez? Is one of them actually Valdez? Or is it something much, much worse? The crew is sure as shit about to find out.

Hold me closer, tiny dancer. On second thought... DON'T.

I'll just stop right there, in case you somehow missed the trailers for this one, which gave away the story's huge reveal from the get-go. I guess it wouldn't hurt the enjoyment of this already very good little shocker, but going into this with no knowledge of what's really going on would be a real kick in the audience's collective ass. I saw it on opening weekend, after a couple of months of the trailers basically telling me exactly what the deal is, and I enjoyed it nonetheless, but I am going to hold out hope that you get to see it cold.

Now that I’ve seen ABIGAIL twice, the second time being for the purposes of a refresher for this year's  series of essays, I give it an 8 out of 10. It’s a really good, blacker-than-black comedy, especially for a modern horror effort that goes for a R-rating instead of more potentially lucrative PG-13, but it has pacing issues that could have been solved with a judicious edit here and there. And the foreknowledge provided by those trailers serves to ruin what could have been a gut punch of a reveal. As previously stated, if one went into the film knowing nothing, one would think it was a movie about six criminal specialists who are hired to kidnap a 12-year-old girl with zero explanation as to why, or whose child she is. The reveal takes roughly 47 minutes to get to, and up until that point the narrative is a straight crime thriller. I just wish they’d had the balls and restraint to take the audience by surprise. A real blown opportunity. 

And once the utter mayhem and DEADALIVE level of spewing showers of blood and offal of the final act concludes, it remains kind of open-ended, but I sincerely hope that the studio doesn't get greedy and try to turn this strong stand-alone effort into an ongoing franchise. That wouldn't work, specifically because of the nature of the central conceit. Let's just say that Alisha Weir, who gives a knockout performance as Abigail, is at the age where a growth spurt is more than likely, which automatically kills any hope of reprisal of the role going forward. For once, I say just let a solid effort rest on its laurels and don't milk the teat dry.

And when approaching this film, bear in mind that it's a Universal picture, the latest in a proud brand legacy of monster flicks, and this it can be taken as a sequel to one of that roster's most iconic entries. A clue: It opens to the strains of "Swan Lake," which is heard throughout the film, thus evoking a certain 1931 horror cinema landmark, as that tune opened that classic movie. 

Oh, what the hell... 

This was originally developed as DRACULA'S DAUGHTER. There. Are you happy now?

Poster for the theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2024 - Day 11: THE BEAST IN HEAT (1977)

POV of being violated by a sub-human Nazi sexperiment. 

Presumably made to cash in on the success of the infamous Nazisploitation classic ILSA: SHE-WOLF OF THE SS (1974), this 1977 Italian entry into the Nazisploitation sub-genre ups the ante of violence, gore, cruelty, nudity, you name it (as is to be expected of Italian exploitationers of its era), and the end result is a nasty little number indeed.

THE BEAST IN HEAT tells the story of a sadistic Nazi lesbian who conducts genetic engineering experiments to create a male beast that will father a superior race, keeping the creature perpetually dosed-up on stimulants and aphrodisiacs and graphically unleashing the priapic and inexhaustible monster on unfortunate captive virgins. There's a sub-plot about resistance fighters, but no one is here for that. It's all about seeing just how unashamedly sleazy and vile it can get, and believe you me, it gets very vile. Definitely not a date movie and very much benefiting from being an Italian production with all the excessive leeway that grants, while it will leave you wanting to take a shower afterward, at least it's a better movie than ILSA: SHE-WOLF OF THE SS.

Hoo-boy, this fucking movie... 

I finished watching it and I would like to firmly state that I recommend it solely for the most hardened fans of the sleaziest stripe of exploitation cinema. It's Italian-made and from the 1970's, which automatically guarantees considerable excess, and the film does not disappoint in that department. It's loaded from stem to stern with full frontal nudity (male and female), torture, general cruelty, sadistic violence, flagellation, penetration with a firearm (yes, it goes there), electrodes to a lady's privates (in closeup), a lesbian Nazi doctor orchestrating most of this, and the titular genetically-modified monster whose inexhaustible sexual stamina with unfortunate women is graphically demonstrated on several occasions. There's even a bit where, while in the throes of unbridled lust, the monster bloodily tears off a screaming girl's pubic hair and devours it in closeup. 

 

THE BEAST IN HEAT is one of the sleaziest movies I have ever seen, but it's not as unpleasant as stuff like ILSA: SHE-WOLF OF THE SS an BLOODSUCKING FREAKS, thanks to it being competently made and not bearing the look and vibe of a greasy snuff film shot in a random dank basement. That said, you will likely feel quite unclean afterward if you opt to sit through this one. I certainly felt like I needed a hot shower and a thorough scrubbing when it was over.

 

The only thing that prevents it from being a perfect storm of nastiness is two war scenes that slow the proceedings to a dead halt, but it's still over-the-top enough to be worth seeing, should you opt to check it out. And it is absolutely, repeat, NOT a date movie. Hell, I can't even show you images of any of its more scabrous highlights, so take that for what it's worth.

  DVD cover art.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2024 - Day 10: CAT PEOPLE (1982)

A none-too-subtle visual metaphor for fear of loss of virginity, one of the film's central themes.

Irena Gallier (Natassja Kinski) arrives in New Orleans to move in with her brother, Paul (Malcolm McDowell), years after their parents died and the two were separated in foster care upon being orphaned. From the moment she arrives, her brother makes it clear that his interest in her is considerably more than merely filial, as he openly stares at her with longing and sniffs her scene like an animal when in close proximity. When outside of the house, Irena sketches the animals at the local zoo, with her attention being especially focused on the zoo's panther. Her intense focus while sketching causes Irena not to notice that night has fallen and the=at the zoo is closing for the day, so zoologist Oliver Yates (John Heard) goes to inform her of closing time. Startled by him, Irena runs away, and it is here that she first displays superhuman catlike attributes, in this case the ability to gracefully leap distances that a normal human could never manage. Undeterred, Oliver asks Irena out and a romance ignites.

The smell of sweet taboo.

As his advances toward his sister fail, Paul goes out at night in the form of a black leopard, with the intent to hunt human prey in order to sate his blood lust. His intended victim escapes with a mere mauling, and leopard Paul is tranquilized and captured by animal control and taken to the zoo, where he is examined and placed in a cage, winding up under the care of Oliver. Paul is trapped there for days, until Irena drops by and sees him in cat form. Paul had been missing and Irena was concerned of his whereabouts, but a part of her sees the cat and feels the connection. Later, Paul satisfies his blood lust by tearing the arm off of another zoologist, and once sated, Paul resumes human form and returns home. It is there that he directly informs that he and Irena are descended from an ancient race of human-feline hybrids, the product of cat spirits mating with human women, and that their parents were brother and sister. Siblings of their species must mate with each other, lest their passionate urges transform them into apex predators who can only be human again after making a kill. Understandably freaked out by this, Irena runs away with Oliver to his getaway cabin on the bayou, where she wrestles with her desire to be intimate with Oliver but denying herself out of fear of the family curse. As more feline traits manifest and her need reaches the boiling point, it's only a matter of time until nature takes its course, and brother Paul isn't happy about being denied his right as Irena's fated other half. With the curse's demand for blood after the deed is done, how can the love of Irena and Oliver survive? And what of Paul?

Directed by Paul Schrader, the genius writer of Martin Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER (1982), CAT PEOPLE is a remake of the 1942 classic, updating the basic idea and moves it from Manhattan to New Orleans, upping the gore content and cranking up the sexual heat to about as much as could be gotten away with in an R-rated film in 1982. Coming out during the height of the early-1980s slasher movie boom while also being a byproduct of the era's wave of practical transformation effects wave, CAT PEOPLE's main selling point was its intent as a "hot" horror confection. The simultaneous sultry and waif-like beauty of Natassja Kinski was milked for all it was worth, as her dark-eyed image was in the zeitgeist at the time, and her Euro sensibilities rendered her unafraid of roles in which she would be seen full-frontally nude, and her generosity in that department was most appreciated. In short, Schrader's version took what was implicit in Jacques Tourneur's 1942 original and made it explicit, and, for me at least, that is where the 1982 version falters.

The themes of fear of loss of virginity and embracing one's primal sexual urges remain, but in taking advantage of a more permissive cinematic era, unnecessarily adds incest to the mix, presumably in a bid to make the sexual content that much more prurient, but the story would have worked just fine without it. And it doesn't help that Irena's relationship with the zoologist is a dud, thanks to him having no discernible personality. I found it impossible to care about their romance, and when the story hinges on that central pairing, that's a big problem. No amount of dreamlike atmosphere, lush cinematography, and moody synth soundtrack can do much to lift this above the level of a WEIRD TALES pulp story gene-spliced into an installment of RED SHOE DIARIES. And though well-executed, the transformation moments are too few and they pale in comparison against those of AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON from the previous year. (Too be fair, that's an admittedly high bar.) For my money, the best effect in the film is when zookeeper Ed Begley Jr. gets his arm torn off. As for the eye candy, Natassja Kinski is hypnotic in her shaggy-bushed glory, but supporting player Annette O'Toole as a stunning redheaded zoologist was the female presence that haunted my memory for decades, and I remain a staunch fan of hers some forty-two years later. She gets to reenact the original film's famous swimming pool scene as the prey being stalked, and in the process we get a welcome-but-gratuitous topless scene where her alabaster sweater goblins command the screen.

The classical beauty of Annette O'Toole.

Your mileage may vary, but Schrader's CAT PEOPLE just doesn’t hold up for me after 42 years.  

When I first saw this film,  I was a hormonally raging 17-year-old, so its content was the perfect thing at the right time, but now I’m just shy of sixty, I’ve had more practical sexual experience than the average American male (not a brag, but a statistical truth, plus the luck of the draw), and my abilities in that department are diminished due to age and my medical conditions, so the film’s once-vaunted eroticism has no effect on me now. Taking the titillating erotic effect out of the equation, what I’m left with is a study in typical early-’80’s style over substance. The film is gorgeously constructed, and that’s it’s biggest problem. It feels, to me, like a construct rather than a story being told. As previously nioted, the transformation effects, while decent, pale in comparison with those found in AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON and THE THING, and aside from that, the cinematography, the oh-so-early-’80’s Girgio Moroder music, and the nudity of Nastassia Kinski and Annette O’Toole, I find the overall result to be, well, frankly kind of boring. It took me three nights to finish this sit-through, the first time I've seen the film since it opened in 1982, and if I’m being honest, if not for review purposes for this year’s 31 Days of Horror, I’d have just skipped the rest of it after O'Toole's topless segment.

With all of that said, considering the current era's spate of remakes and "re-imaginings," I hope no one gets it in their head to again remake CAT PEOPLE for a contemporary audience. The original got everything right 82 years ago. The only thing that could be brought to the story now is amping the gore up to the level of the LONE WOLF AND CUB movies, preferably achieved with practical effects, but I say just let it lie. Shrader's CAT PEOPLE is not terrible, but, pretty and prurient though it certainly is, you can do a lot better. More of an "adult" fantasy than an outright horror, it's not a bad date movie, though.

Poster for the American theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2024-Day 9: CAT PEOPLE (1942)

A picture is worth a thousand words

Serbian expat Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon) meets cute with marine engineer Oliver Reed (Kent Smith) while she sketches a black leopard in Manhattan's Central Park Zoo. When Irena invites Oliver back her apartment for tea, he notes a statue of a man on horseback impaling a large cat with a sword. Irena explains that it's a depiction of King John of Serbia, and the cat symbolizes evil. She then recounts a legend from her village that says the formerly Christian villagers resorted to witchcraft after being subjugated into slavery by the Mamaluk hordes during the medieval era. Upon driving out the invaders and seeing the diabolical change the villagers wrought upon themselves, King John had the villagers executed, but "the wisest and the most wicked" escaped into the mountains and spread across the globe. Oliver brushes the legend off as simple foreign superstition, but Irena could not be more serious about it being an irrefutable truth. More to the point, Irena believes she is descended from those "cat people," and her behaviors serve to underscore her belief. Nonetheless the two being dating and Oliver buys Irena a kitten as a present. The kitten recoils in fear upon meeting Irean, so it is exchanged at the pet store for a bird. Alone with the bird, Irena toys with it like a cat would, and, since it is in a cage and cannot escape, the bird dies from sheer fright. 

"I tawt I taw a puddy tat...AAAAAGGGHHK!!!

After a whirlwind romance, Irena and Oliver marry, but there's a major snag: Irena refuses to consummate the marriage, out of fear that any arousal of passion will transform her into a feline apex predator, specifically a black leopard. 

Following the nupitals, the newlyweds dine at a Serbian restaurant, where Irena catches the eye of a spooky Eastern European woman who approaches her and says, with more than a hint of sad melancholy, "Moja sestra,"  or "my sister," in Serbian.

                                                                             "Moja sestra..."  

 

When it is clear that Irena does not recognize her, the woman departs, and the sense of dread escalates.

Understandably frustrated, Oliver urges Irena to see his friend, Dr. Louis Judd (Tom Conway), a psychiatrist, in hope that therapy will cure Irena's superstition and fear of intimacy. Dr. Judd is a bit of a creeper who's none too subtle about his desire for Irena, but despite her legs being as closed as the vault at Fort Knox, she loves Oliver, so she fucks off out of Judd's office. But the pussy drought drags on, and Oliver's affections soon turn to his sweet office mate, Alice Moore (Jane Randolph), an all-American gal type who professes her long-simmering love to him. Though their encounters are strictly platonic, the attraction between Oliver and Alice grows, which does not go unnoticed by Irena. With a love triangle in place, with the added element of a lustful psychiatrist and and accent of the lethally supernatural, things get weird. Alice is twice stalked by an unseen and large feline presence, memorably in a sequence involving a swimming pool, and Irena makes a return visit to Dr. Judd's office, where the question of her shapeshifting heritage is answered in no uncertain terms.

 

The famous pool sequence.

Jacques Tourneur's CAT PEOPLE may the first of the great American sound horror pictures released outside of the Universal cycle, and it is a taut and eerie study in mood and atmosphere. Its kill count is low, as the narrative is more about examining the fear of intimacy and letting us get to know and understand its characters than providing us with straight-up shocks. It's basically a film noir of its era, albeit one featuring the supernatural in lieu of gangsters and gumshoes, and its gene-splicing of that genre with the flavor of the golden age of movie horror is an interesting flavor indeed.  Though in no way explicit, its material is more adult than one would expect for a work of its vintage (as well as one made under the constraints of the Hays Code), and star Simone Simon smolders as the sultry Irena, who exudes a bewitching and eerie "foreignness" as she struggles with her love for Oliver while denying him (and herself) sexual gratification.

Irena dreams of prowling cats.

 

Though lacking a franchisable monster, there was nonetheless a sequel, THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE, was released two years later. I have yet to see it, but I hear very good things about it. Anyway, CAT PEOPLE is absolutely worth seeing. It's only 73 minutes, so it doesn't overstay its welcome. Plus, you should definitely see it before you tackle its 1982 remake.

Poster from the original theatrical release.