Cat People was the most successful of the Val Lewton produced horror films which proved that Jacques Tourneur was a visionary filmmaker who bore a singular aesthetic in spite of a low budget, and created one of the masterpieces of 1940s horror, a moody Freudian fright show by producing sheer terror merely through sound, shadows, and suggestion.  

Cat People is an American horror classic film directed by Jacques Tourneur and produced for RKO by Val Lewton. The film tells the story of Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon), a newly-married Serbian fashion illustrator obsessed with the idea that she descended from an ancient tribe of Cat People who metamorphose into bloodthirsty panthers when aroused. When her husband begins to show interest in one of his coworkers, Irena begins to stalk her.  

Made as a B picture with few special effects and changes in scenery, Cat People invokes its uncanny tale through a palpable sense of dread and innuendo: an inventive use of sound that effectively complements the film’s interplay of light and shadow (courtesy of DP Nicholas Musuraca, who would photograph the film noir Out of the Past five years later).