Purr-fect Horror?

The movie we watched in class so far was The Cat People. It was about Irena, a woman from Serbia who moved to New York City. She quickly falls in love with a man she met at the zoo while littering. After they get married, however, there is some tension when she refuses to do anything with her husband. She believes she will turn into a panther and kill people if she is emotional aroused. Her husband, Oliver, gets her to see a psychiatrist thinking she just has childhood issues. After her husband ends up leaving her for his co-worker (Alice) Irena gets jealous and starts stalking them. She ends up killing her psychiatrist but got stabbed in the chest from his knife.

This is a story of fantastic marvelous. There is a strong suggestion of supernatural activity. There was some doubt whether or not the story was supernatural or just hinted at it. The movie never actually shows Irena turning into a panther and killing the psychiatrist or tearing up Alice’s robe. She let loose a jaguar from the zoo so it’s possible it was just the jaguar for the longest time. There is some pretty compelling evidence though when she’s with the psychiatrist; they look to be alone as he puts the moves on her. After he kisses her though, it is the psychiatrist who fights off a giant cat, in shadows on the wall. It is still plausible there is nothing supernatural going on, it could have been Irena or it could’ve been her best buddy the jaguar who attacked him. The evidence I rely on to make this call is that when he was fighting the cat he stabbed it with his knife; who then has his knife sticking from her chest at the end of the movie? To me this signifies that Irena is in fact a creature of supernatural being and she isn’t just full of childhood issues; she’s full of evil. I thought that Cat People was a very effective piece of art-horror, because it did not rely simply in sight gags or guys in rubber suits. It was a psychological horror, but also physical because I wouldn’t want to be left alone with Irena. Carroll's theory works well with Cat People. The scariest part for me was when Irena followed Alice to the bus stop and it when the bus pulled up it sounded like a panther screaming or the bus stopping. I didn’t know if Alice was about to get mauled and the footsteps following her was creepy. I thought that when the panther attacking the psychiatrist was horrifying because the shadow fight was intense and I didn’t who was going to make it out alive.