How Long Is “Cat People”?

Paul Schrader's MTV-flavored remake of the Val Lewton-produced classic puts a more overtly sexual (but less comprehensible) twist on the story of a woman whose passions arouse the panther within. After a vague but seductive prologue establishing the legend of African leopard gods which mate with human virgins, the film proceeds to tell the tale of young Irina (Nastassja Kinski), an innocent waif who arrives in New Orleans to visit her long-lost brother Paul (Malcolm McDowell), a local minister. She barely has time to unpack before the wild-eyed Paul confides to her that they are part of a race of panther-beings who will revert to their animal form if they mate with anyone outside of their family. When Paul disappears for several days, Irina takes a job at the New Orleans zoo after finding herself strangely drawn to its newest tenant, a ferocious black panther. She soon befriends zoologists Oliver (John Heard) and Susan (Annette O'Toole), who had initially helped the police corral the cat after a series of maulings of local prostitutes. Unable to deny her attraction to Oliver, Irina finds it increasingly difficult to quell the savage instincts welling within her and refuses to consummate their relationship. After she confides her fears to Oliver, he soon learns the horrifying truth behind the captured panther and resolves to discover if Irina's story is true... and learns that there is no such thing as "safe sex" where Irina is concerned. Though this remake is filled with a sultry, erotic intensity heightened by Kinski's feline sexual presence and Giorgio Moroder's pulsing musical score (featuring songs by David Bowie), the flawed script eschews the nightmare-logic of the Cat People myth established in Jacques Tourneur's hypnotic 1942 original in an attempt to substitute sexual tension for suspense. The haunting swimming-pool sequence of the original is reproduced here but makes little sense in the altered context.