My Top 10 Favorite Scary Movies: "The Curse of the Cat People" (1944)

Compared to its origin story, "The Curse of the Cat People" is more of a companion piece than a sequel RKO intended. But somehow within the template Val Lewton had to work in (keep the budget under $150,000, run for 75 minutes, and RKO would supply the film titles), this is essentially a horror film. It's a horror film about childhood, isolation, and a child's perception of terror. 

This is a fairy tale about a slightly creepy little girl (Ann Carter) who just happens to be the daughter of Oliver and Alice Reed from the original "Cat People." Amy just wants to be loved by her father who has not achieved the balance of being a parent and friend rendering her unable to make friends at school. But there is something about his daughter that makes "Ollie" uncomfortable that makes him push her away. "It's something else -- something moody -- something sickly. She could almost be Irena's child." But it isn't a sequel! Remember that!

Amy becomes so lonely and rejected by her schoolmates, she wishes for a friend and achieves one in an impeccably dressed Simone Simon, who calls herself Irena and will be Amy's friend for as long as she needs her. While she plays dolls and learns about numbers, Amy finds a kindred soul in an old woman living in the scariest home in all of Tarrytown. An ex-actress and "not the mother" of Barbara (Elizabeth Russell), Julia Farren (Julia Dean) tells Amy stories of her life on stage as well as the local legend of Sleepy Hollow. 

Oliver is then invested and then not as he still has not achieved ultimate closure over Irena. This blows up in both of their faces when Amy finds a picture of her father and friend together. Since this is not a sequel (I say with staggering syllables), Ollie's person has remained rather consistent since the first movie. He remains utterly self-serving, now having an unhappy experience with Irena and then tells Amy's teacher "Alice and I both saw Irena lose her mind. Do you think I can sit here calmly and watch my child?"

Yes, I know we are to treat "Curse..." as a companion piece, but there are moments that make the links between both movies rather cryptic. Perhaps it is a young white male's unhappiness in a rather charmed life that became greater than him and had been passed off onto his daughter. Perhaps it's what Alice tells Miss Callahan, the voice of reason and Amy's teacher, "It's almost as if there were a curse on us. I wouldn't care if it were on me, but it seems to be directed against the child. Irena haunts this house." 

Now for a little refresher. Irena was either propelled by the sociology of her Serbian legends, whether true or not, in being taunted by her own schoolmates for only having a mother and a dead father, which fed into the concept of "cat people." Now, because of her supposed psychosis, according to everyone around her, a young white man finds himself for the first time in his life unhappy knowing to some degree the woman he married wouldn't touch him! She gives into her personal inevitability and the husband marries the woman he's basically emotionally cheated on his wife with then has a child who ends up an outsider who "wanted for nothing" according to him. Maybe it is the plight of the ignorant, of the parent who doesn't want to listen and that's something scarier than the use of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." 

Cool Things I Found: The Curse of the Cat People (1944) - Articles - TCM.com "The Curse of the Cat People"  A Screenplay by Dewitt Boden