Me-WOW!
Welcome back my friends. It’s good to have you back in Castle Rackula.
After reviewing My Bloody Valentine 3-D last week, my mind has been on horror remakes. Some obviously, are more successful than others.
One sure-fire way to be more successful is to do what My Bloody Valentine 3-D did and amp up the gore and nudity.
Especially the nudity.
With that in mind, this week I’ll be revisiting one of my favorite horror films of the early 1980s, Paul Schrader’s Cat People.
The film is a remake of auteur Val Lewton’s 1942 noir classic starring Simone Simon, the sexually voracious French filly who use to give out keys to her bedroom to let a man know she found him worth the tumble (I’ve still got mine somewhere).
As sexy as Simone was, she never got naked on camera. The cast of Schrader’s film didn’t have the same hang-ups.
Let’s begin with Annette O’Toole. Currently married to Spinal Tap funnyman Michael McKean, Annette has a lengthy topless scene in a health club locker room and then floating in a pool.
This is an opportunity to appreciate Schrader’s directing.
Annette goes to her club for a swim. But the place is deserted and she doesn’t bring a bathing suit, so she strips down to her panties and jumps in.
There’s really no reason for her to have taken her bra off. Panties and a bra would most closely approximate a functional bikini and if her underwear is getting wet anyway, why not her bra.
But if she had followed that logic, we would never have seen her pale-nipped pontoons.
Next is Lynn Lowry, who plays Ruthie the hooker. Lynn made her acting debut getting naked for a Satanic ritual in the classic I Drink Your Blood, and fans of Radley Metzger will remember Lynn as the girl Claire Wilbur bangs with a strap-on in Score, Metzger’s ode to sexual freedom.
Cat People is Lynn’s fourth fright flick, flowing appearances in I Drink Your Blood, George Romero’s The Crazies, and David Cronenberg’s Shivers.
Lynn’s scene is short but sweet. She reveals a quick glimpse of her puffy nipples before she’s mauled to death by Malcolm McDowell in panther form.
Another victim of McDowell’s, who's as busty as she is nave, is played by Tessa Richarde.
Tessa, who gets topless here, had done so previously in teen sex comedies like The Beach Girls and The Last American Virgin, which stars another one of my favorite 80s ladies, Diane Franklin.
But all this nudity is as nothing compared to that of Nastassja Kinski.
Daughter of raving maniac, Werner Herzog muse and human gargoyle Klaus Kinski, “Nasty” (as her ex-husband Quincy Jones called her) must have had a goddess for a mother to turn out as she did.
One could say the same of Asia Argento.
Nastassja, who roomed with Demi Moore in the 1980s (one could imagine long nights spent comparing the bushiness of their beavers) is as far from skingy as an actress of her caliber can get.
Back in Europe, she had starred alongside the great Christopher Lee in To the Devil a Daughter, where she went full-frontal in a slow-motion scene.
She beat out Olivia Newton-John for the part, which is a shame in a way, because it would have been Olivia’s only nude scene to date.
Cat People is a tour-de-skin for Nastassja, and she shows off her fully developed body to perfection as stalks around in the Lousiana swamp waiting to turn into a panther.
With all 3 b’s from Kinski, Cat People is a must for fans of kinky horror.
Well, that’s all for this week. Please join me back here at Castle Rackula next week for more blood, guts, boobs, and butts.
Until the, fangs for the mammaries!
