Plot
Irena Gallier meets her older brother Paul, a minister, in New Orleans. It is the first time they have met since their animal trainer-parents died, and Irena was sent to a series of foster homes. Paul's Creole housekeeper Female (pronounced feh-MAH-leh) helps Irena settle into her brother's home, but Paul himself disappears. That same night, a prostitute, Ruthie, walks into a fleabag motel to meet a john — and is instead mauled by a black leopard, but survives the attack. The police capture the leopard, aided by a team of zoologists: Oliver Yates (Heard), Alice Perrin and Joe Creigh. The next day, Irena finds herself in the zoo where these scientists work. Drawn to the newly-captured leopard, she befriends Oliver and takes a job in the gift shop nearby. Shortly afterward, the leopard kills Joe by tearing off his arm and it escapes.
Soon, Paul turns up and tells Irena of their family's werecat heritage. He also tells her that their parents were actually brother and sister. Only sex with another werecat prevents the transformation; the werecats are ancestrally incestuous. If a werecat has sex with a human, it transforms into a leopard, and only by killing a human can the werecat regain human form. On the run from her brother, even though he is her only possible companion, Irena takes refuge in a sexually-frustrated romance with Oliver, afraid of what might happen if she consummates their passion.
Eventually, Paul (in leopard form) breaks into Oliver's house, intent on killing him so he can have Irena to himself; Alice shoots the leopard. While performing a necropsy on the cat, Oliver finds a human body inside and the panther disintegrates; Paul has literally disappeared. Irena is now trapped. If she takes a human lover, she will have to kill to regain human form. Eventually, Irena makes love with Oliver, transforms into a leopard and flees, sparing Oliver's life. She escapes, but is later trapped on a bridge by police. Shortly after Oliver arrives at the scene, Irena sees him and jumps off the bridge and escapes.
Oliver realizes where she is headed and confronts Irena at a secluded lake house, she having regained human form by killing the house's caretaker. Irena tells Oliver she did not kill him because she loves him, and begs him to let her "be with her own". Oliver realizes that he cannot live without her, so he ties Irena's arms and legs to the posts of the bed and proceeds to make love to her, knowing what she will become.
We later see Oliver at the zoo working. By this time, he and Alice are romantically involved. He walks to a cage that contains a black leopard, casually hand-feeding it and stroking its fur. It is implied that this is Irena, now resigned to permanently living as a leopard in the zoo to avoid hurting Oliver or anyone else.
Read more about this topic: Cat People (1982 film)
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“If you need a certain vitality you can only supply it yourself, or there comes a point, anyway, when no one’s actions but your own seem dramatically convincing and justifiable in the plot that the number of your days concocts.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“Trade and the streets ensnare us,
Our bodies are weak and worn;
We plot and corrupt each other,
And we despoil the unborn.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)