Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Sadly Over-hyped

Fantastic!

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

I don't suppose any horror film has created more critical controversy than Curse of the Cat People. It has its admirers, its detractors and those who stand in the middle. Me, I'm a firm admirer. I love the movie. I think it's almost perfect. Ann Carter is so convincing a little actress, it doesn't really matter that Simone Simon's role is so small, nor that the script is sometimes a bit ambiguous, nor that the story sometimes heads in one direction only to veer off in another. Miss Carter not only holds it all together but overshadows any and all deficiencies in script, support acting and production. It doesn't matter to me whether Irena is a real ghost or whether she exists solely in Amy's imagination. I don't care if Amy's fantasy world is Disneyesque, - why wouldn't it be? If the attitudes of her parents and teacher appear stiff or inconsistent or enigmatic, isn't this precisely the way they could be interpreted by a child? Once you view the movie from Amy's perspective, the inconsistencies and non-sequiters, the oddities and half-explained events, don't just dissolve but become part of the fabric of the child's vision. Such is the skill of Wise's editing and direction, it's impossible to tell where he begins and another leaves off. Musuraca's moodily atmospheric photography gives the images a luster that are always a joy to behold. The sets strikingly contrast Victorian fusty with cleanly modern, the workaday real with romantic fantasy. Irena's costume has been criticized, but isn't it precisely the trailing-sleeved gown of a fairytale princess? The music too, the carols, are highly appropriate. An engrossing 70 minutes. The pace never falters. The only thing wrong with The Curse of the Cat People is its title. OTHER VIEWS: Great acting from Ann Carter who is actually the lead in this alleged "sequel", with some excellent support from Sir Lancelot as the little missy's minder, Julia Dean as a half-mad old thespian and Elizabeth Russell as her embittered daughter, and of course Simone Simon as the is-she-menacing-or-is-she-not wraith of traumatic past. These players more than overcome any slight feelings of doubt audiences may have about the story and its veracity. John Howard Reid writing as Charles Freeman.

Cat People was an interesting thriller in which, as in most Val Lewton movies, you can interpret certain elements as you wish. The movie was a hit, so of course it makes sense that Hollywood wanted a sequel. Thus, Curse of the Cat People.If a sequel is a movie that continues the story of individuals from the original film, has some of the same actors, and has the original title in an altered form, then "Curse of the Cat People" is a sequel. But if a sequel is a movie that also is the same genre as its predecessor and aims for a similar visceral experience, then this movie is definitely not a sequel.While Cat People was a thriller with ambiguous elements, Curse of the Cat People is a moody tale of a lonely child's inner life. It is a movie about unhappiness, alienation, and the shaky line between fantasy and reality. It is a movie about the difficulties of parenting and the difficulties of having a parent. It is atmospheric and at times suspenseful, and it is ultimately a far more interesting and, for me, far better movie than Cat People.If you want an actual thriller sequel to Cat People, you may not like this. But if you want a fascinating and unusual film about childhood that is often told from the child's point of view, this is a must-see.

For reasons best known to the cynical, exploitationers concerned, this film was screened in a double bill with Cat People, to which, of course, it bears only the most tenuous connection. Like Cat People - in which I detected several flaws - I found here one gigantic flaw but again that may stem from the fact that I was watching both some seventy years after they first hit the screens. When, towards the beginning of the movie, Amy's contemporaries - three little girl who decline to play with her - first notice the old, large, house, it is on a regular block alongside others, yet when Amy runs out of the house in the last reel, she stumbles on the house after running through the WOODS for several minutes and it is completely isolated. That to one side I can but agree with several people who have recorded here their enchantment at this beguiling movie which is surely, as several of them noted, one of the finest depictions of a lonely child ever put on screen. Of the two titles in the double bill I found this the most enjoyable, entertaining and thought-provoking.

Robert Wise directed this sequel to "Cat People", set several years later. Oliver Reed(played by Kent Smith) and Alice(played by Jane Randolph) are now married with a six-year old daughter named Amy(played by Ann Carter). Amy is a lonely child who has a hard time making friends, and seems to prefer living in her fantasy world, visited by the ghost of Irina(played by Simone Simon) Irina looks after Amy, but Oliver wants nothing to do with this, insisting that Amy must be socialized. Amy does befriend an elderly woman in her "haunted" house, though her daughter(played by Elizabeth Russell, though not as her cat lady character from the first) is resentful. Amy will later run away from home, becoming lost, though she is far from being alone... Unique and thoughtful sequel builds on the story from Part I, rather than repeating it, and result is most satisfying. (No third film was made however!)