Cat People, or Be careful of shadows

The first horror film I am going to talk about is Jacques Tourneur's Cat People (1942) that was produced by Val Lewton (who produced many horror films and wrote the story on which Cat People is based). The movie focuses on Irena, a fashion designer, who falls in love with a man named Oliver.  Irena is of Serbian descent and there is a legend in her hometown that the women become panthers when sexually aroused (known as Cat People).  Irena is convinced that she is one of the Cat People but she is persuaded to marrying Oliver (the marriage is never consumated due to Irena's fear of killing Oliver in her panther state). Oliver convinces Irena to see a psychiatrist who tells her that her beliefs are due to a childhood trauma (her father dying under mysterious circumstances).  Meanwhile, Oliver has been confiding in his assistant Alice about his martial problems.  After Alice confesses her love to Oliver, Irena follows Alice and these lead to two of the most tense scenes in cinema:


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I don't want to spoil the ending for anyone, because I highly recommend that you see it (and the sequel!).  A film technique called the Lewton Bus originated in this film (which is any time tension is dissipated with moment of surprise).  What I really admire about this movie is it's use of a type psychological tension.  I feel like to use of shadows and just noise can make the person wonder if everything that is happening is imagined.  Everything is just the idea of Irena becoming a panther, it is never confirmed visually.  And of course, your imagination is the best assest for building tension.  This is where the 80s remake failed my opinion.  Everything is shown and to the extreme.  I think this story is better represented in a quieter and more reserved way.

The perfect Venn Diagram

I enjoy tense/scary movies but I cannot handle the gore in most horror films.  Which is why old school/pre-Texas Chainsaw Massacre horror films are perfect for me.  Those movies can really ratchet up the tension with nary a dismemberment in sight.  I even enjoy the low-tech special effects that some films pull off.  And I know some of those movies are terrible.  I've seen a bunch of them on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (like Killer Shrews, The Horrors of Spider Island, Manos: The Hands of Fate, and Tormented).  But it is a genre that has its high points as well like Cat People, The Univnvited, or the Bride of Frankenstein.  So for the month of October, I am going to highlight some of my favorite scary movies (and most of them will feature very little gore).  And maybe this year will be the year I finally see Gregory Peck in The Omen (very unlikely though).

Let off some steam Bennet

I watch Commando a few weeks ago.  If there is one movie that can sum up the tendencies of most action films from the 80s, I feel that Commando could be that movie.  Excessive violence? Check.  Nudity (breasts) for no reason? Check. Synth heavy score?  Check.  Really terrible one-liners? Check.  Moments out of left field? Check.  The levels of ridiculousness in Commando is kind of beyond belief (in the opening credit Schwarzenegger and Alyssa Milino pet a wild fawn).  But honestly, I'm glad I saw it.  Because the score, by Oscar winner James Horner (he did Glory, Titanic, Apollo 13, and Braveheart), was so amazing.  Commando might be the only action film with a score that feature both steel drums and pan flute.  This movie was bananas but of a kind of good in a so bad it is good kind of way.  The script is terrible with so many bad one-liners delivered by that great thespian Arnold Schwarzenegger.  And the poor main bad guy has a physique like a regular 40-year old man (kind of chunky with a beer gut), and they dress him in leather pants, a chain mail sleeveless shirt, with a leather choker and then make the actor and Schwarzenegger contemporaries/members of the same special forces team (implying that one guy kept up his training and the other let himself go).  Oh and Dan Hedya (who is of Syrian descent) is cast as a wannabe Central American dictator.  Oh the 80s, you were adorable.

And here is part of the score for your listening pleasure: