When Richard Bone (Jeff Bridges) spots a guy dumping something in a garbage can on a rainy night, he doesn’t think much of it – until he learns that a murder took place in the same area. When Bone is placed at the scene and becomes a suspect, he and his friend Alex Cutter (John Heard) try to solve the crime, but find themselves awash in conspiracy theories and moral ambiguities.

Director Paul Schrader adds a glossy ’80s eroticism to Jacques Tourneur’s ’40s horror classic about a race of people who turn into cats when sexually aroused. Nastassja Kinski travels to New Orleans to visit long-separated brother Malcolm McDowell, who goes missing right around the time a black panther attacks a prostitute. Giorgio Moroder’s synth-pop score includes the David Bowie hit “Cat People (Putting Out Fire).”