Cat Person VS. Cat People

So my best buddy Erik and I sat down last night and recorded a brand spanking new hour of us rambling on (and on, and on) about shit nobody cares about in our sad "I will eventually die alone, covered in Cheeto dust" nerdy way. We talk about the Tank Girl comics, the new Radiohead album, Foul Play, plaid shorts and cheap hair dye. You should really tune in and listen to it if you have an hour to kill and are feeling particularly masochistic.

Fear Of a Dork Planet

(click it, bitch)

We also discussed the 1942 horror noir classic Cat People, but as we only allot ourselves approximately 15 minutes per subject so as to cram as much pointless shit into an hour as humanly possible, we really didn't have time to hit on all of the subtle nuances and underlying metaphors of the film. So I'm gonna do it now, the way I like to do, by pitting original against remake. And here we go.

Cat People (1942)

Directed by: Jacques Tourneur

Starring: A bunch of people who probably had stars on the Walk of Fame at some point, but inevitably got replaced by Kardashians and Grumpy Cat. See what I did there?

Jacques Tourneur was the master of horror noir, a conductor of shadows and fog, a painter of mood and blood - not of the frantic, arterial spray variety, but rather the dark, slow spreading, thickening puddle which leaves the body only after the soul has departed. His films were dreamy, gauzy ballets of subtle, quiet horror. As films go, it's weak in comparison with Tourneur's later films: I Walked With A Zombie and Curse of the Demon. Clocking in at an hour and eighteen minutes, it's a swift and to-the-point little film about a young, sweet faced girl from Serbia who comes to America and finds a very different land than they gloomy, superstitious one she left behind. She's a unicorn in a metropolis; she shouldn't exist, but she does. And no one can see what she really is because they've forgotten how. 

As the new world closes itself to the old, Irena opens wide, a transplanted poisonous orchid blooming in its new garden. But guilt is a powerful anchor and there's still ancient earth clinging to her roots. She hesitantly enters this new world with its promises of sexual freedom and liberation, but her Old World shadow - in the shape of a cat - keeps looming up behind her to swallow her and drag her back. Irena is so conflicted that she literally splits in two. Demure, polite, starched and ironed wife material on the outside VS. sultry, mystical, full blown PMS bitch kitty on the inside. And it doesn't take much for the claws to come out and the fur to fly. Anger, jealousy, lust... any and/or all of these emotions, deemed unladylike even here in the Brave New World of America, will transform Irena into a sleek, savage, ivory fanged monster should she allow them to overtake her rather than reining them in as a lady ought to do. Cue bitchy *meow* noise here.

This must have been some heavy shit back in 42. I mean, they were actually talking about S-E-X! in this flick! Or rather the lack thereof. Irena does not have sex with her husband, ever, and likely never will. We have to wonder why her husband Oliver loves her: she's an ice queen, wound up and corseted and withdrawn so tightly that it's a wonder she can pee. Does he really love her, or was his marrying her the Young Professionals version of purchasing a Dresden doll for his mantle? There's no warmth there, no real intellectual stimuli, nothing. So why does he love her? 

Obviously he's confused idolatry with love. He likes looking at Irena with her perfect little face and trim, tiny figure, but not as a person. We all know that he'd be better off bonking his secretary, a lively little minx with her own interests and ideas who has no trouble at all expressing her feelings and desires.

Oh, and let's not forget the smarmy mustachioed headshrinker, whose A#1 goal in life is to fuck Irena, Hippocratic Oath be damned. Oh yeah buddy, yous gonna get fucked by Irena all righty. He's quite the smug prick, David Nivening all over the damn place. He strikes me as the sort of man who would probably leave his socks on while he screwed - fussy, black dress socks made out of the finest silk, no less. In summation, he's really oily and creepy and gross and icky and I can't help but think that he's the kind of guy who wears his grandma's underthings and smears himself with Crisco before doing a naughty little German dance hall routine in front of the full length mirror.

But he pushes his white man entitlement too far and gets disemboweled by Irena the Kitty so haha good riddance.

Cat People (1982)

Starring: Klaus Kinski's snake fucking daughter, that guy who always gets mistaken for John Hurt but isn't, that redheaded chick who used to be married to Lenny Koznowski, Malcolm McClockwork Orange, Ruby goddamned Dee, Ed Begley Jr. who gets his arm ripped off by a panther and I didn't care, Lynn Lowry!!! and the city of New Orleans. Oh, and David Bowie's lovely voice singing the film's theme song "Putting Out Fire (with gasoline)."

Okay, 40 years have gone by, it's 1982 and SEX. Sex everywhere, everyday, on every available surface in every imaginable position. Truckloads of sex and more on the way, with sexberry syrup on the side. Everybody is having sex while they're having sex...well, everyone except for Irena Gallier, newly arrived from some distant country where baobab trees grow out of red dust and black leopards get room service.

Irena, an orphan, has come to New Orleans to meet her long lost brother Paul, whom she has not seen since childhood. Irena has been raised in a foster home and seems like a totally normal, well adjusted young lady. Paul has been in and out of prison and eschews shirts. He enthusiastically welcomes Irena into his grandiose Nawlins mansion and almost immediately takes over the role of the pervy psychotherapist in the original. He has obviously installed Irena in his home to serve as a fucktoy. But you can't rush a relationship like that, so Paul bides his time by venturing out into the red light district, turning into a black leopard and attempting to maul a prostitute.

Meanwhile...

Irena, sketchpad in hand, fucks off to the zoo and spots a black leopard in a tiny little cage which she is inexplicably drawn to. We of course know that it's her brother, caught in his cat incarnation. You see, in this version, cat people only turn into cats after they've had sex. If they wish to turn back into humans, they must kill. Paul failed to kill the whore, so now he's the newest attraction at the zoo...until he yanks an unlikable Ed Begley Jr's arm out of its socket, escapes and returns home in human form to tell Irena all about their sordid family history. Their parents were brother and sister and werecats can only have normal, non-cat-changing sex with each other. A grossed out Irena flees, not wishing to carry on the family tradition of incest...even though she grew up with Klaus Kinski so you wouldn't think this would be such a big deal for her.

She moves in with Oliver, the nice zoo boss who caged her brother, and doesn't have sex with him. She wants to, but she's scared. Her virginity is an object of total disbelief and fascination for Ollie's coworker Alice, who wants to know all about the times that Irena didn't get laid. Weird chick. She also has the hots for Ollie, but steps aside with only a slight grumble when Ollie's preference for Irena becomes clear.

Paul tries to kill Ollie in leopard form.
Alice kills Paul.
Irena takes a train to Hallucinatory Africa, where she meets her dead leopard mother.
Irena returns to New Orleans.
Irena terrorizes Alice in a public swimming pool.
Irena fucks Ollie.
Irena changes into a leopard.
Irena kills somebody and turns back into a hot chick.
Ollie ties her to the bed and has kinky bondage sex with her.
Irena turns back into a leopard.
Ollie locks her up in the zoo cage left vacant by her brother.
Ollie and Alice start bonking, because they're normal and they can.
Ollie visits Irena with some pork shoulder and ear skritchies to show that there's no hard feelings.

The end.

Moral: Sexy, exotic foreign women who come to our country, take our jobs in zoo gift shops and steal our white Aryan men are sluts in heat. You can maybe fuck them once or twice, but seriously - cage those whores up tight and be fruitful and multiply with genuine American girls with no accents. The end.