Cat People

With a unique blend of mysticism, eroticism and tension, this remake is both engrossing and terrifying in an off-beat way.

Schrader takes himself very seriously, but after "Cat People," there's no reason the public should perceive him as anything greater than an exploitation director with delusions of grandeur.

Cat People, director Paul Schrader's remake of a 1942 B-movie, combines explicit sex, graphic violence, special effects and the supernatural and somehow falls flat.

In 1982, Paul Schrader seemed a very odd choice to remake Val Lewton's classic 1943 horror movie. The original was a model of restraint and subtlety and the remake, frankly, isn't.

Paul Schrader's hammering, art-porno remake of Jacques Tourneur's deft little thriller.

Kinski was essential to the film as conceived, and she's endlessly watchable.

Cat People is Schrader’s most overtly carnal picture, using horror to explore repression, intimacy and desire.

Just like the old school gangster films that opened with empty warnings about the fact that crime doesn’t pay, the narrative limits do little to discount the expression of liberated and violent feminine desire.

Very much a product of its time, it still holds up nicely as a solid horror thriller. Not only does (it) drip with atmosphere -- much of it provided by the spooky, well-shot New Orleans setting -- but it boasts a strong cast.

…the divisions between us run red in Paul Schrader’s dark, almost demented vision of embryonic good and evil…