Cat People
Universal Pictures | Release Date: April 2, 1982 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
61
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 17 Critic Reviews
Positive:
8
Mixed:
7
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
The New York TimesVincent Canby
Miss Kinski and Mr. McDowell are most effective - eerie and damned -and Mr. Heard is stalwart and self-effacing as the mere human who stumbles onto the truth and forever guards the secret. Read full review
60
Time Out LondonStaff (Not Credited)
The seductively exotic surface of this mythically underpinned fantasy might be offset for some by much graphic gore, but if you can buy the romantic metaphors for the primitivisms of sexual obsession, the film delivers down the line. Read full review
60
EmpireKim Newman
It's not exactly good, and it has some very bad scenes indeed, but the performances sometimes sparkle and the unusual happy ending -- scored with David Bowie's 'Putting Out the Fire With Gasoline' -- is surprisingly moving. Read full review
50
TV Guide Magazine
Director Paul Schrader's dreamlike, stylishly atmospheric remake of Val Lewton's 1942 horror classic needs to be taken on its own terms: viewers who assent to its Freudian logic and creepy sexuality will likely be entranced, but just a little critical distance renders the whole thing irretrievably ludicrous. Read full review
50
TimeRichard Schickel
Anyone grownup enough to gain legal admission to the movie (it is rated R) will probably find himself either reduced to guffaws or wishing he had stayed home looking at his poster of Nastassia Kinski wearing a snake. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderDave Kehr
Once again, Schrader tries to elevate a set of pimply sexual hang-ups to the level of Wagnerian opera; if this 1985 film were any heavier, it would probably crash right through the screen. Read full review
40
The New YorkerPauline Kael
The film is comatose; you're brought into it only by the camera tricks or the special-effects horrors, or, perhaps, the nude scenes.
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