Director: Jacques Tourneur
Year: 1942
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Psychological
Plot:
After meeting a striking artist, a man's growing romance with her brings out her fears of turning into a ravenous cat-creature and tries to quell her fears as a series of murders around town sheds light on her story and forces him into a dangerous situation to control her.
Review:
Overall this one wasn't all that bad but did have a few problems with it. One of the biggest facets against this is the absolutely dull, dreary pace here that doesn't offer a whole lot here. Building up their growing romance and how her superstitions are continually interfering with everything makes for a really bland time by keeping the story of her beliefs too wrapped up in nonsense most of the time. The folklore tells of cats as being of great good to their village, yet here the fear of them doesn't seem that well-developed beyond her rabid devotions and beliefs which fuel this one, and very little of this makes for a scary time without giving this a really grand feeling here. All of this instead makes for a somewhat talkative and really restrained time here by taking a lot of the time and leaving very little of it for action scenes here.
Still, what really ends up helping this one is this build-up to the psychological problems of the girl which is where this one gets the strength, as this one manages to accomplish the incredibly tricky feat of keeping nearly everything hidden away yet coming up with a truly enjoyable and entertaining offering which is what's accomplished here. By delving deep into the storyline here and how her convictions and worries are for the most part mostly in her head, there's a great deal of care done in here about the different means in which they're manifesting yet aren't anywhere near the level of effectiveness her when it comes to the film's stalking scene to generate that kind of impact here.
Utilizing the legendary park sequence where an unseen figure chases someone through the park's dark walkways is a fine example while also bringing up the start of several other positives in the other stalking scenes. The other great scene here is the ambush in the swimming pool of a hotel, letting the shadows and darkness come off quite well while the aftermath damage to the leftover clothing is impressive as well in furthering the whole affair, while a really tense encounter at work where they find themselves trapped inside the room only to confront a vicious panther in there with them and the finale where the cat launches the final attack here against the friends with the big sequence in the hotel room attacking the friends before getting to the fine finale in the park for a nice conclusion here. These here make this one quite enjoyable and entertaining.
Overview: ****/5
An excellent entry in the genre that manages to start a lot of classic genre tropes, there's quite a lot to like here even with a few stilted sections that prevent it from being truly flawless. Still, the positives here are enough to keep it truly on top of the scene for a large section of time and make this essential viewing for the most part with the only letdown being those that are turned off by the approach featured here.
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