The Tidiness of CAT PEOPLE

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CAT PEOPLE has never worked for me; I would love to understand why.

Those who know the film will understand my confusion. On every scale of excellence, from script and performances to direction and photography, CAT PEOPLE can rival any horror film ever made. Its high reputation is more than justified. And yet, for me, something is wrong.

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Perhaps the film is too tidy, too neat. It "dots every i, crosses every t," and leaves out the messy uncertainties that make later films by Lewton so fascinating.

There is nothing tidy about THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE, in which even the ghost might not be a ghost at all; nothing neat about THE BODY SNATCHER, with its intensely bitter personal conflict that not even death can erase; nothing is dotted in I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE, which is a baffling family drama; nothing is crossed in THE SEVENTH VICTIM, which is... THE SEVENTH VICTIM.

These thematically complicated films are as excellent as CAT PEOPLE, but they reject an easy closure; instead, they nag at the mind long after the screen has faded. For all of its power and beauty, CAT PEOPLE ends with its ending.