Die Nächte der Würgerin (1957)
37KDie Nächte der Würgerin: Directed by Alfred Shaughnessy. With Barbara Shelley, Robert Ayres, Kay Callard, Ernest Milton. Leonora Johnson is a woman who returns to her ancestral home and is told she will inherit money, but also that there is a family curse: being possessed by the spirit of a leopard in spite of her disbelieving psychiatrist Dr. Brian Marlowe.
“Out of Insignia Films, Cat Girl is a cheap British variant on Jacques Tourneuru0026#39;s Cat People from 15 years earlier. Plot basically finds Barbara Shelley as Leonora Brandt, a woman seemingly the victim of a family curse that turns her into a killer Leopard when disturbed emotionally. Naturally her psychiatrist Dr. Brian Marlowe (Robert Ayres) is positive that sheu0026#39;s suffering mental illness, this in spite of the evidence suggesting otherwise. As the bodies begin to pile up and Dr. Marlowe takes Leonora under his wing, something is going to give come the finale.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eDirected by Alfred Shaughnessy and photographed by Peter Hennessy, itu0026#39;s a picture that doesnu0026#39;t lack for moody atmosphere. The Brandt family home is a creepy looking place, a sort of rectory type establishment, this forms the backdrop for the first half of the piece as it dallies in old dark house conventions. With barmy uncle and pessimistic housekeeper thrown in for good measure. Then itu0026#39;s a switch to a sanitarium in preparation for the tense finale that takes place out on the dank and dimly lighted streets.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eSome decision making by the doctor is hard to swallow, as is his approach to mental illness come to think of it, while thereu0026#39;s some poor acting away from future Hammer Horror darling Shelley, but it does well with its minimal budget funding. Yes it makes you appreciate even more the brilliance of Tourneur and Musuraca back in 1942, yet thereu0026#39;s a fun time to be had with this one if accepting it on its own modest eerie terms. 6/10”
