Is Cat People Scary? The Verdict and the Whole Plot
Somewhat, 3.5 out of 10. It is a slow, talky curse story with two stalking scenes.
🐱THE SCARE SIGNAL
SCARE SCORE
3.5 /10
🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱
DREAD LEVEL
Low
You may be wary of late buses and basement swimming pools for an evening, and then it fades.
DOG
Dog: fine
fine, no dog dies.
Ruling: It is a moody curse story in which a pet shop goes wild, so watch it on a Sunday afternoon.
Cat People runs seventy-three minutes and follows a fashion illustrator who believes an old village curse will turn her into a panther. Oliver Reed buys her a kitten as a gift, and the kitten hisses at her.
The premise, briefly
Irena, a Serbian-born fashion illustrator in Manhattan, marries Oliver while convinced that an old village curse will turn her into a panther if she ever feels passion.
How much do you want to know?
🐱
The verdict above is spoiler-free. Everything below, including the ending, stays hidden until you pick a depth.
🐱CUT TO THE CHASE
How it ends
Irena turns into a panther and kills Dr. Judd, who stabs her with his cane-sword. She goes to the zoo, opens the panther's cage with the key she stole, and is struck down. A car kills the escaping panther. Oliver and Alice leave together.
The scene you're dreading
The basement swimming pool, in the middle of the film: Alice swims alone at night, something stalks her in the dark, and she screams until Irena turns the lights on. Nobody is hurt, and the only damage is a torn bathrobe found afterward.
The dog
No dog dies in Cat People. A panther does, at the end, when a car hits it.
Cat People is a sad love triangle with two stalking scenes in it, and knowing where they fall takes most of the fright out.
THE SHORT VERSION IS HIDDEN
How it ends, the scene you're dreading, what happens to the dog, and the bottom line. About twenty seconds to read.
What actually happens
The kitten hisses and the pet shop agrees
Irena Dubrovna, a fashion illustrator from Serbia, sketches a caged black panther at the Central Park Zoo and gets chatted up by a marine engineer named Oliver Reed. At her apartment he notices a statue of a medieval king on horseback spearing a large cat. Irena says the king is King John of Serbia and the cat stands for evil, and that the villagers in her hometown turned to witchcraft long ago, so the king had them killed. The worst of them fled to the mountains. Oliver buys her a kitten, which hisses at her, and the animals in the pet shop go wild when she walks in. She tells him she is descended from those villagers and will become a panther if she is ever overcome by passion. He proposes anyway, and at the wedding dinner a woman with a catlike look greets Irena as her sister.
Irena never consummates the marriage because she is afraid of what it will do to her. Oliver is patient for a while, then talks her into seeing Dr. Louis Judd, a psychiatrist who thinks her fears come from childhood. Oliver also confides in his assistant, Alice Moore, which upsets Irena, and Alice tells Oliver she loves him. When Irena sees the two of them at a restaurant, she follows Alice home. A bus pulls up just as Alice hears a threatening noise, and she gets on it. A groundskeeper then finds several freshly killed sheep, with paw prints that turn into a woman's shoe prints. Irena returns home upset and cries in the bathtub, and at some point she takes a zoo key that fits the panther's cage.
Alice picks the wrong night for a swim
All three go to a museum together, and Irena is angry when the other two ignore her. That evening Alice decides to swim in the pool in the basement of her building. Something stalks her in the dark, and she screams until Irena turns on the lights and says she was looking for Oliver. Nobody is hurt in it: afterward Alice finds her bathrobe torn to pieces. Irena then tells Oliver after a session with Dr. Judd that she is no longer afraid, and Oliver says it is too late, because he has fallen in love with Alice and wants a divorce. Later, a snarling animal corners Oliver and Alice at work. They get out of the building, smelling Irena's perfume on the way.
The ending, explained
Alice phones Dr. Judd to warn him about Irena, but Judd cuts the call short when Irena turns up for her appointment. He kisses her, she turns into a panther and kills him, and he stabs her with the sword hidden in his cane. Oliver and Alice turn up as Irena is leaving, and she heads to the zoo, unlocks the panther's cage using the key she took and is struck down by the panther as it escapes. A car then hits and kills the panther. Oliver and Alice find Irena's body beside the cage, transformed into a panther. Oliver says she never lied to them and leads Alice away. Irena, Dr. Judd and the panther die, and Oliver and Alice survive.
The post-credits ruling
Nobody has confirmed whether Cat People has a scene after the credits.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: fine, no dog dies.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is Cat People scary?
Somewhat. Cat People is a 3.5 out of 10 with low dread: a slow curse story with two stalking scenes.
How does Cat People end?
Irena turns into a panther and kills Dr. Judd, then lets the panther out at the zoo and is struck down. A car kills the panther, and Oliver and Alice walk away together.
Does the dog die in Cat People?
No. No dog dies in Cat People. A panther dies at the end when a car hits it, and a dead bird and some dead sheep turn up earlier.
Is there a post-credits scene in Cat People?
Nobody has confirmed whether Cat People has a scene after the credits.
Does Irena really turn into a panther in Cat People?
Yes. When Dr. Judd kisses her, Irena turns into a panther and kills him, and her body is found in panther form at the zoo.
BLURRED FOR YOUR PROTECTION
The whole plot of Cat People is hidden, ending included. It stays that way until you ask.
Cat People is seventy-three minutes about a kitten that does not like its owner. Install Scaredy Cat and the trailers stay blurred while you read the plot instead.
