New Print The Lewton-Tourneur low-budget technique relied on implication rather than explication; in a universe of shadows and off-screen sounds lurked the veritable soul of terror. The delicate poetry of the original Cat People, both as a horror film and as a psychological study of female sexuality, is really quite unique in cinema. Simone Simon portrays Irena, a Serbian immigrant in New York who fears that she has inherited a curse that will cause her to turn into a cat should she become sexually aroused. This preposterous supposition is made entirely palatable in small doses of believability (it comes in on little cat's feet) and by Irena's utter earnestness, and utter vulnerability, in attempting to overcome her problem. Moreover, the threat that stalks Irena through the urban nightscape is both within her and without her: the help of a sinister psychiatrist is dubious at best, and her new husband begins to stray. The two-fold betrayal brings on one of the most suggestive, frightening, and justifiably feline jealous rages ever filmed.