Cat People (1982) Revisited – Horror Movie Review

In 1942, RKO Radio Pictures tasked producer Val Lewton with making a series of low budget horror movies for them. An attempt to make up for the money RKO had put into the Orson Welles films Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons. RKO would provide Lewton with a title and he was to turn that title into a horror movie that cost less than $150,000 and had a running time of around 75 minutes. When they told Lewton to make a movie called Cat People, the film he and director Jacques Tourneur delivered turned out to be one of the classics of the era. Cat People was so popular, it was even given the remake treatment forty years later. And it’s the 1982 version of Cat People (watch it HERE) that we’re looking at with the latest episode in our Best Horror Movie You Never Saw video series. Check it out in the embed above!

Directed by Paul Schrader from a screenplay he wrote with Alan Ormsby, Cat People 1982 has the following synopsis:

Irena Gallier has a dark family secret, one that resurfaces dramatically when she reconnects with her estranged brother, Paul. Living with her sibling in New Orleans, Irena finds herself enamored with zoologist Oliver Yates, even as her brother makes his own advances toward her. It’s not long before the dark and dangerous curse of the Gallier clan rears its feline head.

The film stars Nastassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell, John Heard, Annette O’Toole, Ruby Dee, Ed Begley Jr., Frankie Faison, Lynn Lowry, and John Larroquette.

Our Best Horror Movie You Never Saw series is

dedicated to highlighting horror films that, for one reason or another, don’t get as much love as we think they should. We know plenty of you horror hounds out there will have seen many of the movies we pick, but there will be plenty of you who have not.

The Cat People (1982) episode of Best Horror Movie You Never Saw was Written by Cody Hamman, Narrated by Shawn Knippelberg, Edited by Juan Jimenez, Produced by John Fallon and Tyler Nichols, and Executive Produced by Berge Garabedian.

Have you already seen Cat People (1982), and if so, are you a fan of the movie? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.

A couple previous episodes of the Best Horror Movie You Never Saw series can be seen below. To see more, and to check out some of our other shows, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!