This review ties into my recent musings on sequels & reboots. Here is a sequel made 70 years ago that stands perfectly as its own film AND as an original continuation.
"Curse" was commissioned because Cat People was a massive low budget hit and producer Val Lewton saw a great opportunity to use the publicity of the first film to make something even more radical and personal. Its so far removed from the first Cat People in genre, structure, casting and message. Its the opposite of the carbon copy reboots we are subjected to now.
The original was an erotic thriller about "the were-cat" that kept its supernatural elements ambiguous. The sequel is a sentimental ghost story/character study about children that also keeps its supernatural elements ambiguous. Curse never contradicts or reduces or copies the original. The best way to look at it is an origin story told through another character. Both of these protagonists are damaged young women and while the first is an epic tragedy, the sequel is an epilogue that offers some redemption for our fallen heroine.
Ya know, factoring in Paul Schrader's remake from the 1980s, Cat People is the most artful and rewarding franchise in horror. All 3 films are delicious, respectful exercises in film poetry that redefine their expected place in canon. Its also one of the few franchises that has some basic aesthetic lineage throughout the films, probably because it takes a higher class of filmmaker to make them & we weren't bogged down in endless, exploitative entries.
Check this one out. Not your average horror film. Its flawlessly shot, lovingly produced, competently directed, etc etc. It fits in with The Godfather 2 & The Road Warrior as one of the most perfect sequels yet made.
No comments:
Post a Comment