Behind the Couch

The first in a series of moody, literate horror films produced by Val Lewton in the 1940s, Cat People is an evocative example of how effective the ‘less is more’ approach to horror can be. Directed with effective restraint by Jacques Tourneur, the film is a masterpiece of mood and atmosphere. By electing to suggest the horror rather than show it outright, Cat People remains an eerily atmospheric and psychological chiller to this day. One of the first horror films to reference psychoanalysis, it plays out as a dark tale of sexual anxiety and coded lesbianism. It tells of Irena (Simone Simon), a young Serbian woman working as a fashion designer in New York City, who meets Oliver (Kent Smith), a draftsman in a ship building company. After their somewhat impulsive marriage, their relationship becomes strained when they fail to become sexually intimate. This is because Irena believes she is descended from a race of Satanic cat people, doomed to transform into a ravaging panther when arous...

1943 Dir. Jacques Tourneur When a publicity stunt backfires, a domesticated leopard escapes from a New Mexico nightclub prompting a desperate search to re-capture it. An ensuing series of grisly deaths is blamed on the animal; however nightclub performer Kiki and her agent Jerry soon suspect that it isn’t the leopard responsible for the violent deaths; but a deranged serial killer who uses the escaped animal as a cover for his heinous crimes. After the success of Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie , producer Val Lewton reteamed with director Jacques Tourneur for their next collaboration, the RKO-assigned title of which was to be The Leopard Man . Rather than churning out a hackneyed variation on the werewolf film, in which a man transforms into a slathering beast before claiming his prey, the exceedingly literate Lewton chose to adapt Cornell Woolrich’s mystery-thriller ‘Black Alibi’: a twisted tale about a killer in a Mexican city using the fear caused by an escaped wild a...

As part of this week's ongoing Boris Karloff blogathon , we take a look at the Uncanny One's final collaboration with distinguished producer Val Lewton – the 1946 Period-Horror-‘Message’-movie hybrid, Bedlam . Be sure to check out a list of links to other Karloff related goodness over at Frankensteinia: The Frankenstein Blog . After the success of The Body Snatcher and with Isle of the Dead finally wrapped and ready to be released, RKO decided to ‘reward’ Lewton by upping his budget for what would transpire to be his last B Horror movie for them. As well as receiving $350,000 Lewton was also given a staggering 8 months for post-production – unheard of for a B movie at the time. Following on from Isle of the Dead and The Body Snatcher , Bedlam was another ‘period’ film with astounding attention to detail lavished upon it, and like Isle of the Dead was also inspired by a painting – William Hogarth’s Bedlam Plate 8: The Rake’s Progress . The script was written by directo...

As part of this week's Boris Karloff Blogathon , I've decided to have a look at the three atmospheric chillers Karloff made with producer Val Lewton in the mid-forties. Given a collection of lurid titles by RKO, Lewton was instructed to craft low budget horror films to compete with Universal's slew of Monster Movies at the time. Lewton created subtle, provocative and tasteful films that became highly influential in the horror genre. When Karloff came on board for three of these films ( Isle of the Dead, The Body Snatcher and Bedlam ) the two men found kindred spirits in one another and this dark union produced three highly effective pictures that proved to be the best amongst both men's work. When Val Lewton was told that Boris Karloff had signed a 3 picture contract with RKO and he had to use the actor, Lewton was initially not best pleased. Karloff had been signed by Jack Gross, who like Karloff, was coming to the studio from Universal. According to director Mark...