The Catwoman (1988) / Curse of the Catwoman (1991)

Reviews of narrative based adult films are always interesting in that it's inevitable the long cliché descriptor “porno with a plot” is bound to come up. What's interesting is exactly how that term is used. More often than it, it seems as if there's a condescending nature to describing an adult film focused on telling a story as such, almost as if an adult film has no business trying to be “legitimate” and should always be of a plotless, all sex nature. While it's true that a good chuck of the adult video product does consist of sex only content, especially in the current internet dominated marketplace, XXX films with an emphasis on narrative were what ushered in the golden age of the genre or the so called “porno chic” era. After home video took over in the 80's, there were still a handful of filmmakers determined to give their work much more to offer, one of which was John Leslie. After making the transition from actor to director in the late 80's, Leslie became responsible for some of the finest plot based films in the adult medium. Much like Stephen Sayadian and Gregory Dark, Leslie's storylines were often bizarre and outlandish, crossing over at times into surreal, horror-esque territory, with one of his earliest efforts, The Catwoman, and its companion Curse of the Catwoman being two shining examples of Leslie's narrative eccentricities.

Leslie himself plays a big part in The Catwoman in one of his last roles as a performer. Leslie is Chris, a Svengali of sorts who, after a chance encounter with Jennifer (Kathleen Gentry), a photographer frustrated with her unreliable boyfriend Steffan (Joey Silvera), convinces Jennifer that she's no ordinary woman, but in fact a cat who's inner animal is begging to be untamed. Although skeptical, Jennifer puts herself under Chris' tutelage as he introduces her to his realm of the cats as the man-eater in her becomes unleashed. For an adult film, The Catwoman is uniquely ambiguous in that it never really answers the question as to whether or not it's supposed to be taken literally or metaphorically with there being many things about the film that leads to both options being equally plausible. If Leslie intended the later, the film is successful just based on how clever the writing is, using the idea of having an inner animal to tell the story of a frustrated woman getting one over on her deadbeat boyfriend. The film also plays around with the idea of the dating world being a jungle, even having its own terminology, hilariously referring to overtly zealous men in bars as “hyenas”. On the other hand, given Leslie's knack for the strange, it wouldn't be a stretch to take the film at face value with Gentry and Leslie's characters literally being half-cat given some of the make-up seen late in the film worn by the inhabitants of Leslie's “cat lair”.

With Curse of the Catwoman, Leslie takes whatever ambiguity the first film had and dispenses with it entirely in favor of a story fully rooted in the fantastique. Raquel (Selena Steele), the estranged sister of Veronica (Raven) arrives at her sisters house after learning that she and her sister are descendants of cat people and their destinies dictates one will eventually become the leader of the cats. Along with Veronica's two cat packmates Michael (Rocco Siffredi) and Tanya (Patrica Kennedy), Raquel is inducted into the ways of the cat, though a power struggle ensues when Veronica places the title of supreme cat on herself. Rivaling Laying the Ghost (1991) which was shot around the same time in terms of head-scratching oddness, Curse of the Catwoman is one of Leslie's most berserk efforts with it being pretty blatant that the characters are indeed werecats. A live panther even makes a few brief appearances and Leslie has the cast maneuver and acting like actual cats, making the already peculiar performances all the more unconventional. Though Leslie expands the mythology of the first film a bit, Curse is a fairly insular film, with a good chunk of the film taking place in a nightclub where the cats congregate (the hyena's from the first film return as well with their own “pit” in the nightclub) or in the bizarre house of the main cats looking as if it's in the middle of renovation, though both sets are highly stylized making Curse one of Leslie's sharpest looking films.

Like most of Leslie's features from this period, both films feature excellent scores from Bill Heid, Leslie's main musical collaborator. For these two films, which both feature the same soundtrack, Heid eschews the usual jazz/blues flavored scores he provided for Leslie in favor of eerie synths and pulsating tribal drums used to great effect. The original film even features an infectious snythpop styled theme song for the closing credits. Curse also happens to feature the legendary Jamie Gillis, one of Leslie's best friends, during the films memorable opening scenes. Gillis also acted as the films assistant director, a job he would hold for several other Leslie films. 1991 was a pretty fruitful year for offbeat adult fare. Along with Curse and Leslie's previously mentioned Laying the Ghost, 1991 was the year that Stephen Sayadian (AKA Rinse Dream) returned to the medium with the second and third Nightdreams films and Party Doll a Go-Go!, the later sharing several cast members with Curse including Raven, Patricia Kennedy as well as Tom Byron and Randy Spears. 1991 was also the year that Gregory Dark delivered New Wave Hookers 2, the sequel to his groundbreaking classic (starring Gillis), which also happens to feature Kennedy. Much like those films, Leslie's Catwoman features are indicative of a type of off-center adult filmmaking that only a few select directors seemed interested in exploring. Both essential titles in the Leslie cannon.