The Monster as Woman: Two Generations of Cat People

The random appearances of the monster throughout the horror film work, as Neale points out, to create a reassuring rhythm of presence and lack that serves to regulate and contain the irrevocable lack, castration (Genre 44). [...]for the monster to ward off castration anxiety effectively, he must be shown, and if possible even unmasked, in the course of his filmic appearances so that he can visually enact his fetishistic role.4 The monster's evocation of castration anxieties can be controlled not only visually by his fetishization, as Neale suggests, but also narratively by plots that involve fetishistic and sadistic-investigative aspects. Since Irena's statue portrays King John with a panther impaled on his sword, a connection is made between the devil worshipers, whom Irena describes as having escaped King John's invasion by fleeing to the mountains, and the catwomen, whom she later mentions to Dr. Judd under hypnosis. [...]the force of her threat to the sexually active male is reduced. [...]in a period of growing assertion of female power against patriarchal hegemony, Schrader's film acts as a historically conditioned response to Tourneur's version.