Review: 'Cat People' Blu-ray

A year after Universal Studios completed its trio of major movie monsters with The Wolf Man, RKO tried to get a taste of that film’s success with a project called Cat People. It was passed off to Russian-American producer Val Lewton, a former pulp novelist without an inclination for the kinds of furry fantasies Universal peddled. For their laughably named project, Lewton, co-screenwriter DeWitt Bodeen (Lewton did extensive rewrites on the script), and director Jacques Tourneur fashioned a more subtle, cerebral film than RKO had in mind, exploring the psychology of a woman who may only believe she is a were-cat, her delusion a symptom of the film’s true monster: sexual repression.

366 Days at the Drive-In: Day 131

The Date: February 8

The Movie: Night of the Demon (1955)

What Is It?: Wonderful Jacques Tourneur flick about a Satanist who whips up wind storms and curses colleagues at the flick of a wrist is no less great because the studio insisted on depicting the title demon as a slightly hokey looking kaijū monster. Bonus points for inspiring Kate Bush’s “The Hounds of Love”!

Why Today?: On this night in 1855, mysterious cloven depressions known as the Devil’s Footprints appeared in the Exe Estuary in East and South Devon, England. We’re still waiting for Kate Bush’s song about that.