Curse of the Cat People (1944)

The Curse of the Cat People, released in 1944, was the sixth of the horror films produced by Val Lewton for RKO. 

This was Robert Wise’s first movie as director. 

As with Cat People DeWitt Bodeen got the writing credit but in fact the script was co-written by Bodeen and Lewton.

RKO gave Lewton enormous creative freedom except for one thing - they got to assign the titles to the movies before the scripts had even been begun. Oddly enough this worked quite well - being given a title and then having to build a movie around it was a challenge to which Lewton was more than equal. 

But in this particular case Lewton really was dismayed. He did not want to make any sequels. He solved this problem very adroitly. The Curse of the Cat People is an object lesson in how to make a sequel without actually quite making a sequel. They are two separate but linked movies.

While it’s not quite a sequel The Curse of the Cat People does reveal major spoilers for Cat People. You absolutely must see Cat People first. And the nature of the story means that it is impossible to discuss The Curse of the Cat People without revealing huge spoilers for Cat People. So from this point on this review will contain very big spoilers for Cat People.

The time element is a slight problem. Oliver Reed (Kent Smith) and Alice Moore (Jane Randolph) are now married and they have a six-year-old daughter, Amy (Ann Carter). This means that at least seven years must have elapsed since the events of the first movie.

Oliver has never fully recovered from the death of Irena. He deals with it by convincing himself that Irena simply had strange fantasies but Cat People is unequivocally and unambiguously a supernatural horror story. There is no doubt that the supernatural was involved.

Amy is a sweet kid but inclined to live in a dream world. She is solitary rather than lonely. The other children avoid her but this possibly bothers her father even more than it bothers her.

An eccentric old lady gives Amy a ring. It’s a wishing ring. The one thing Amy wishes for is a friend. The old lady has a daughter but refuses to admit it. She insists that her daughter died years earlier and that this woman is an imposter.

Oliver has an odd obsession that Amy is going to take after Irena. Which is of course impossible. She’s Alice’s child, not Irena’s. Although Oliver stubbornly refuses to admit that anything supernatural happened in the past involving Irena he does seem to fear that Irena might somehow be able to exert an influence on Amy. It’s a kind of irrational superstitious fear.

Oliver is not only worried about Amy’s tendency to live in a dream world. It frightens and angers him.

And Amy’s dream world takes a sudden turn when she finds the friend she so desperately wants. The lady is Irena, or Irena’s ghost.

There are many who insist that nothing at all supernatural happens in this movie. It can certainly be interpreted that way. Whether having viewed the movie you believe that Irena’s ghost is real or not is up to you.

With Nic Musuraca once again doing the cinematography this is a visually gorgeous movie with a very slight fairy tale flavour.

Lewton may not have liked the title but it did allow Simone Simon to be cast. After the huge success of Cat People Simone Simon was definitely regarded as bankable and she was the movie’s main selling point, getting top billing and being prominently featured on the poster. To be honest this is such a low-key movie that the title and the presence of Simone Simon were desperately needed to give it any chance at all of commercial success.

Ann Carter pretty much has to carry the whole movie and her superb performance is its biggest strength. Jane Randolph is dull. Kent Smith is dull as well and in this movie Oliver is a very unpleasant unsympathetic character.

Incidentally once the film was completed Lewton decided he was dissatisfied with the ending and ordered reshoots with a slightly different ending.

This is not even remotely a horror movie. It’s almost a fairy tale movie. It’s the story of an unhappy little girl and it was very autobiographical. There are bits of Lewton in Amy and in Oliver and other characters are based partially on people from Lewton’s past. It’s interesting but to me it seems too low-key for its own good and it’s not surprising that it’s commercial performance was disappointing. It’s worth a look as an interesting misfire although I should point out that most people like it a lot more than I did.

Robert Wise did go on to make a genuinely great horror movie, The Haunting (1963).

Legend (1985)

Legend is a 1985 fantasy film directed by Ridley Scott and it seems to be almost a forgotten movie. 

This is old school fantasy, not just in terms of special effects but in terms of overall feel. It has more of an affinity with movies like The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth than with more recent fantasy films.

This is a fairy tale movie without any noticeable comic-book influence.

It was a box-office flop and critics were unimpressed.

The central characters are Princess Lili (Mia Sara) and Jack (Tom Cruise). This is definitely the Realm of Faerie, a world of magic with goblins and unicorns and all manner of fantastic creatures, but it appears that Lili and Jack are human. Jack lives in the forest. Perhaps he was raised by the fairies? He does speak the language of the animals. 

Lili and Jack are madly in love and although Jack does not seem to have the usual qualifications one needs in order to marry a princess it is clear that Lili has chosen him.

These two young lovebirds then make two serious mistakes. They do two forbidden things. Firstly Jack allows Lili to touch a unicorn, something no mortal is permitted to do. And then Lili exercises her prerogative as a princess to set Jack a quest. She tosses the ring that signifies their betrothal into the lake. Jack must retrieve it, which proves impossible.

Unfortunately these mistakes aid the magical plans of the Lords of Darkness. He detests the sunshine and plans to create a world of perpetual night. To achieve this he must destroy the forest’s two unicorns and he must corrupt innocence. And Lili is clearly an innocent.

The corruption of Lili began with her impetuous urge to touch the unicorn.

The forest has now been plunged into permanent winter.

Jack is not exactly obvious hero material. He’s a naïve good-natured child of the forest. But now he will have to become a hero. 

Yes, there’s a hero’s journey here and Jack has a Destiny.

He has a small band of fairies to help him. They don’t seem like much of an army but they are devoted to Lili. And the elf Gump will be a useful lieutenant.

Tom Cruise is surprisingly effective as a sweet-natured hapless lad trying desperately hard to do the hero thing. And he’s very likeable. He’s the one cast member who gets it just right.

You won’t be surprised to hear that Tim Curry is incredibly hammy as the Lord of Darkness.

Lili is the problem. But that depends on which ending you choose. Yes, this is a Ridley Scott movie so there are three different cuts of the movie each with a radically different ending which changes the whole movie, and which will totally change your feelings about Lili. Either way the fact remains that Mia Sara just didn’t have the necessary star quality or warmth or depth to make us really care about Lili.

This was 1985, long before CGI. But by this time old school special effects and makeup effects had become extraordinarily sophisticated and effective. Legend is a demonstration of just how stunning pre-CGI movies could be.

Ridley Scott’s greatest asset has always been his aesthetic vision and his ability to assemble teams of talented people who can put his vision on the screen. His best movies are largely exercises in aesthetic vision and when he sticks to that he makes superb movies. When he makes movies that require storytelling skill and complex characterisation  the results can be very disappointing (Someone To Watch Over Me being a prime example). I think each of the endings of Legend has its pluses and minuses.

Legend has a few problems but they’re outweighed by its strengths. Recommended.

Frankenhooker (1990)

Frankenhooker, directed and co-written by Frank Henenlotter, sure is one crazyass movie. It’s very gory but it’s so silly that the gore isn’t really disturbing. It’s goofy and bizarre and it’s funny. And it came out in 1990 so it has that distinctive late 80/early 90s vibe.

This is the infamous exploding hookers movie.

Jeffrey Franken is a young man living in New Jersey with his mom. He’s engaged to a sweet girl, Elizabeth. Jeffrey is a failed med student who works for the power company and likes to tinker with gadgets. Gadgets such as a remote-controlled lawnmower which runs amok and slices Elizabeth into little pieces.

Most guys would go through a period of grieving after something like this. But not Jeffrey. He thinks he can fix her. OK, all he has to work with is her head but it’s a start.

He has his own mad scientist laboratory, which looks great because it looks exactly like the kind of mad scientist laboratory that a guy would build in his garage.

He’s going to need some female body parts. 

And he has a brainwave. Working girls. Hookers. They sell their whole bodies. Or rather they rent them out. If he could get hold of some hookers so that he would have a choice of body parts he could not only give Elizabeth a new body, it could be a perfect body. The best legs. The nicest hands. The best posterior. And the best breasts.

Jeffrey will need to be at his best to carry out some very advanced surgical techniques but he has found a way to enhance his intellectual skills, by means of drilling holes in his own skull.

To convince the hookers to co-operate he manufactures a large quantity of super-crack. This stuff is dynamite. Literally.

The hooker idea doesn’t work and then again it does work. He didn’t think there’d be such a mess but then he’s never seen girls explode before. But at least now he has lots of body parts.

Now we get a major homage to the 1931 Frankenstein movie with the roof of the garage opening so that the electricity necessary to provide the vital spark of life can be provided by lightning.

There’s another homage to the 1931 movie, with a twist. In that movie things went wrong when the monster had a criminal’s brain implanted by mistake. In this case Jeffrey finds out that if you construct the perfect woman from hookers you’ll end up with a super-hooker. A Frankenhooker!

It’s a sleazy movie in very poor taste (with plenty of T&A) and it doesn’t care and if you can be offended by a movie as goofy as this you should seek professional help. And if you’re looking for ideological underpinnings here then it’s too late for professional help to do any good.

It’s also, in its own way, a sincere tribute to the great horror movie tradition. Henenlotter assumes you’ve seen and loved the 1931 movie and if you haven’t then you’ll miss many of Frankenhooker’s cleverest moments.

And it’s a love story. OK, a deranged love story, but you have to admire Jeffrey’s devotion. His girlfriend has been reduced to hamburger meat but that doesn’t stop him from loving her.

Given the movie’s tone there was no reason to agonise over getting the special effects to look realistic. Realistic special effects would have made this movie unpleasant instead of fun. And making even the slightest attempt to make the science stuff make sense would have spoilt things. Frankenhooker glories in its silliness.

I like James Lorinz as Jeffrey. He doesn’t go overboard but he has a wonderful intense crazed look. Patty Mullen is fun as both Elizabeth and Frankenhooker.

Frankenhooker is totally nuts and and absurdly outrageous and I enjoyed it a lot. Highly recommended.

I have the French Blu-Ray which looks great.

The Blood Drinkers (1964)

The Blood Drinkers, released in 1964, offered viewers in English-speaking markets their first exposure to Filipino horror. And it’s quite a ride.

Gerardo de Leon had been directing movies since the 1930s and was a revered figure in the local film industry. This is a movie made by a seasoned professional.

Katrina is dead but she’s not going to stay dead. Dr Marco (Ronald Remy) will make sure of that. Dr Marco is a mad scientist but he’s also a vampire which is the first sign that this movie is going to be slightly out of the ordinary. These are vampires who are definitely supernatural but they make use of medical science and technology.

This movie gets major bonus points for not being yet another retread of Dracula. It boldly strikes out in a totally new direction and creates its own distinctive vampire mythology.

And Dr Marco was, and is, madly in love with Katrina. Thanks to his mad scientist apparatus he has revived her but she needs blood. She will also need a new heart. Another interesting angle in this movie is that blood is more nourishing if it comes from a loved one, and a replacement heart needs to come from a close family member. A sister would be ideal.

And Katrina has a sister, Charito (Amalia Fuentes) although Charito doesn’t know this. Their mother is a rich old lady, Doña Marissa (Mary Walter), although nobody knew about this.

Doña Marissa does not like the idea of seeing her daughter’s heart cut out but she isn’t given much choice. Dr Marco is not easy to defy.

Charito has a boyfriend and he is determined to protect her from the vampires who have been active in the district. The old priest is also determined to stop the vampires.

The police are sympathetic but there’s no evidence against Dr Marco.

Dr Marco has a sexy female vampire assistant, Tanya (Celia Rodriguez). He has mind control powers as well, 

The first striking thing about this movie is that it continually switches between colour and black-and-white, but tinted black-and-white. When the vampires are active everything gets tinted red. At other times a blue tint is used.

This is obviously a deliberate strategy to emphasis that there are different worlds co-existing. There’s the world of the living and the world of the dead, the world of vampires and the world of non-vampires, the world of good and the world of evil. This is also a very Roman Catholic movie so there’s also the world of the Church and the world of Satan.

And de Leon is not afraid to go all out with the gothic trappings. There’s a lot of fog!

What makes it really interesting however is that these are complex vampires. Dr Marco is scary and evil but his love for Katrina is sincere and overwhelming. He will defy heaven and hell to save her. There is a touch of that “love never dies” angle that Coppola would later push even further in his 1992 Dracula. We cannot help admiring Dr Marco’s resolute determination to save the woman he loves and we cannot help seeing him as, at least to some degree, a tragic figure.

Doña Marissa is complicated also - a mother who can only save one of her two daughters.

And Tanya is more than just a sexy lady vampire sidekick. She obviously loves Dr Marco but is so devoted to him that she will help him to save Katrina even though Katrina is clearly her rival.

And there’s a tantalising hint that redemption may be possible, even for vampires. Unlikely, but possible.

Ronald Remy as Dr Marco is one of the great screen vampires. This guy projects immense amounts of masculine eroticism and he has so much charisma that he makes Christopher Lee look a bit on the bland side.

Mary Walter as Doña Marissa is both creepy and ambiguous. Amalia Fuentes manages to be both sweet and glamorous. The acting from the supporting players is overall pretty good.

The Blood Drinkers is both visually and thematically unusual and interesting and it’s a rather good vampire movie with a nice overheated tropical vibe. Highly recommended.

Severin have released The Blood Drinkers on both DVD and Blu-Ray. There are some extras including an audio commentary.

Isle of the Dead (1945)

Isle of the Dead, released in 1945, was the tenth of the eleven movies made by producer Val Lewton at RKO in the 40s. Yes, there were eleven - there were also two non-horror films.

Lewton started his run at RKO with Cat People which was a smash hit. The subsequent films fared increasingly poorly at the box office. Lewton’s idea had been to take an entirely fresh and original, and subtle, approach to the horror genre. Artistically the idea was a triumph but audiences were not too keen on subtle horror. And while Cat People had received rave reviews critical response to the later Lewton films was decidedly mixed. Critics even more than audiences struggled with the subtlety and psychological complexity of these films.

The nine Lewton horror films gradually built huge cult followings and they’re now worshipped by cinephiles but it is important to bear in mind that only Cat People and The Body Snatcher (the most conventional of the lot) achieved massive success at the time.

RKO had started to become just a little disillusioned. They wanted proper gothic horror settings, not contemporary settings, and they tried to force Lewton into more conventional channels by imposing Boris Karloff on him as the star for the final three films.

Isle of the Dead was a bit of a cheat on Lewton’s part. It does have a period setting but instead of central Europe in the nineteenth century it’s set on an island in the Aegean in 1912, during the First Balkan War. And instead of playing a monster Karloff plays a Greek general. There are supernatural monsters in the movie, or at least the idea of supernatural monsters plays an important role in the plot, but the supernatural definitely does not figure in the movie in the conventional way for which RKO was hoping.

An American war correspondent, Oliver Davis (Marc Cramer), has attached himself the the army of General Nikolas Pherides (Boris Karloff) which has just won a major victory against the Ottoman forces. There is just one tiny fly in the ointment - there have been a couple of cases of septicaemic plague in other Greek army units.

The inspiration for this movie was Arnold Böcklin’s famous painting of the same name. Or rather paintings - the Swiss Symbolist artist produced half a dozen versions between 1880 and 1901.

In the movie the General and Davis visit a tiny nearby island (which looks like the paintings) which is uninhabited and used as a cemetery. They intend to lay a wreath on the grave of the General’s wife. 

The island is represented by a matte painting and it’s a fine example of how effective that technique can be. When we reach the island we can’t help wondering if we’re leaving behind the world of science and reason and entering a world of nightmare.

They are in for a surprise. The island is well and truly inhabited. A Swiss archaeologist, Aubrecht (Jason Robards Sr) lives there with his housekeeper, an old peasant woman named Kyra (Helene Thimig). They have a whole tribe of house guests. There’s British diplomat St. Aubyn (Alan Napier), his wife Mary (Katherine Emery), their sweet but timid servant girl Thea (Ellen Drew) and there’s a Cockney tinware salesman named Robbins.

Davis and the General spend the night on the island. In the morning Robbins is dead, and all the symptoms point to septicaemic plague. 

The General, quite correctly, declares that the island is now under quarantine. Now all they can do is wait for the wind to change. The plague is spread by insects. When the sirocco starts to blow the hot winds will destroy the insects’ eggs and the plague will be over. There is no way of knowing when the sirocco will arrive. If it doesn’t arrive in time they are all doomed. There is no cure for the plague.

And to add to their troubles old Kyra is convinced that the evil has been brought upon them by a vorvolaka (an undead creature similar in some ways to both a ghoul and a vampire). She believes that Thea is the vorvolaka.

So until the movie is well advanced the horror comes from the fear of the plague and from Kyra’s superstitious beliefs. The General is of peasant stock and was raised in an atmosphere of superstition. When he reached the age of manhood he abandoned such beliefs and become a modern man, a man who believed in science and progress. But can we ever entirely forget the superstitious fears of childhood?

Early on we learn something that foreshadows the real horror content which hits us in the final third of the picture, and what a gut-punch it is when it arrives. I can’t think of anything from this era that can match it, apart from The Seventh Victim which just happens to be a Val Lewton picture directed by Mark Robson.

And in Isle of the Dead Mark Robson doesn’t put a foot wrong. Cinematographer Jack MacKenzie  shows us that he knows a thing or two about using light and shadow.

All the cast members are solid but it’s Karloff who has the really meaty role. The General is a good man, but a hard man. He has a stern sense of duty, but also a stern sense of justice. We may find it hard to warm to him but Karloff makes sure we respect him and are fascinated by him.

Isle of the Dead has subtlety and an atmosphere of dread and it has some real chills. Very highly recommended. 

Millennium Actress (2001)

Millennium Actress is a 2001 anime feature film co-written and directed by Satoshi Kon. His first feature film, the superb Perfect Blue (1997), had been a surprise hit and received widespread critical acclaim. Millennium Actress was the first feature that was Kon’s own project right from the start and on which he acted as both writer and director. Millennium Actress, like Perfect Blue, deals with the blurring of the line between fantasy and reality.

Millennium Actress was greeted with enthusiasm by critics and is now established as one of the great anime feature films.

This is a movie that you have to stick with. At first it seems fairly straightforward but it becomes steadily more complex and more fascinating.

It begins with the demolition of a movie studio, the studio at which the famous actress Chiyoko Fujiwara had made all of her films. Chiyoko is now in her 70s and retired and lives in seclusion. Somehow documentary filmmaker and Chiyoko Fujiwara  superfan Genya Tachibana has persuaded her to be interviewed on camera. He arrives at her house with his cameraman in tow.

As Chiyoko reminisces about her life and career Tachibana and his cameraman find themselves inside her memories, filming her life as it happens. But is Chiyoko remembering her life or her films? Are the two indistinguishable to her? It appears that Tachibana and his cameraman are inside her films as well as her memories. In fact Tachibana becomes several characters in her movies.

The central obsession of Chiyoko’s life is her attempt to be reunited with a man she only ever met once, briefly. She spends years trying to find him. Or maybe that happened in one of her movies? It is impossible to separate her memories from her movies. The pursuit of a mysterious man seemed to be the plot of all her movies!

The man is a political dissident but politics plays zero part in this movie. The man is a young girl’s romantic fantasy - a handsome dashing rebel. He’s a rebel in the 1940s but he’s a rebel in lots of other eras as well.  

Does the man exist? He does exist for Chiyoko. Maybe he’s real if she believes he’s real. And of course he could be real.

There’s also the curse, and the key. And the man who hunts Chiyoko’s man across the centuries. We know the key is real. We’ve seen it. Her mystery man gave it to her for safekeeping. It unlocks the most important thing in the world. When she finds him again he will tell her what that is.

You can’t assume that Chiyoko’s whole story is a fantasy. There’s reality and there’s movies and they intersect or co-exist or exist simultaneously. Maybe reality creates movies or maybe movies create their own reality.


And there’s the role played by an older actress Eiko, who right from the start saw Chiyoko as a rival.

It might all sound a bit cerebral but this is also a movie about overwhelming emotions. This is a movie about love.

And it’s a movie about having a quest. About being willing to do anything, dare anything, risk anything, to find the one you love. It doesn’t matter if it takes decades. 

It’s also a movie about movies. It’s a love letter to cinema.

Millennium Actress was made using old school cel animation techniques and it looks great.

Finding a satisfying ending is always a challenge in this sort of movie but Kon pulls it off superbly. Millennium Actress is very offbeat but it’s a fascinating moving magical movie. Very highly recommended.

The Shout! Factory Blu-Ray looks great and the extras include interviews with the producers.

I’ve also reviewed Perfect Blue (1997).

Inn of the Damned (1975)

Inn of the Damned was the first Australian western. It’s also a horror western. It wasn’t the world’s first horror western but this was (and is) are rare subgenre although I’ve never understood why.

There’s an obvious spaghetti western influence. I guess this could be called a Vegemite western!

It’s beautifully shot and it looks like a western but not quite. This doesn’t look quite like the American West. I suspect that this was a deliberate move to give the visuals a slightly unusual flavour.

This was producing team Rod Hay and Terry Bourke’s follow-up to the notorious Night of Fear with Bourke once again writing and directing.

Initially it seems like a standard western. An American bounty hunter, Cal Kincaid (played by American import Alex Cord), has been recruited to hunt down the notorious outlaw and killer Biscayne (Robert Quilter). The local law enforcement are not entirely comfortable with this. Kincaid is paired (against his will because by nature he’s a loner) with Trooper Moore (Tony Bonner). Moore is very much a do-it-by-the-numbers military type and Kincaid is a lone wolf but they develop a certain respect.

Biscayne seems to have a connection with the Bildara Inn and odd things have happened there. Guests have disappeared. Now gold assayist Cummings and his travelling companion, a friendly prostitute, have vanished. They had been on their way to the inn. The old German couple who run the inn insist they haven’t seen these two. Trooper Moore isn’t entirely satisfied but he’s not sure why.

At this point we start to realise that this may not be the story we thought it was going to be. And Kincaid is starting to have some nagging doubts.

The movie now becomes more of a full-blown horror movie than a western. And as in Night of Fear the impact of the horror doesn’t rely purely on gore.

Two more guests arrive at the inn - Mrs Millington (Diana Dangerfield) and Beverley (Carla Hoogeveen). We assume that Beverley is her stepdaughter. Mrs Millington displays what might be seen as a not entirely appropriate affection (an affection of a physical nature) for her stepdaughter. It’s clear that Beverley has in the past reciprocated these affections but now she’s decided that it’s wicked and she threatens to tell her Dad.

Given that Diana Dangerfield and Carla Hoogeveen spend almost all their screen time naked one might assume that this is just a way of adding some commercially desirable exploitation elements (which would have been a smart move) but it does add an extra helping of perversity to an already perverse movie and so it’s keeping with the overall tone.

It builds to a very suspenseful climax.

There’s not a huge amount of gore. It’s the twisted bizarre motivations that provide the real horrors.

Judith Anderson was lured back to her native country to star as the old German woman running the inn. She’s very good without going too far over the top.

Alex Cord at the time seemed about to make the transition to major stardom, which sadly never happened. He just never got that big breakthrough role. He’s an excellent hero here. He doesn’t try too hard with the tough guy thing but we get the message that Kincaid is a formidable guy and he’s smart as well as tough.

There are lots of fine Australian actors here with John Meillon amusing as Biscayne’s hopeless drunken accomplice. Tony Bonner provides a perfect contrast in styles to Alex Cord. Carla Hoogeveen must have been delighted that she actually gets to speak in this one (unlike Night of Fear).

Terry Bourke keeps the momentum going. The action scenes are good. It’s a polished handsome production with terrific location shooting.

I just love the horror western idea and Inn of the Damned carries it off well. Highly recommended. 

I’ve also reviewed Terry Bourke’s previous effort, the superb Night of Fear.