cinema history class: the leopard man

Session: Horror-Noir—Does It Exist, Week 1
Movie: The The Leopard Man (1943)
Directed by Jacques Tourneur

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL

Plot:
After a leopard escapes its handler, people start dying -- apparently by leopard attack.  Hilarity ensues.

Reaction:

The story was interesting enough, and there were a few good moments -- notably the blood ozzing under the door during the first attack. And the story was kind of interesting. But there really wasn't enough in this movie to really grab my attention. Joe adamantly disagreed with me, which prompted me to rewatch the movie on the intertubes (thanks, dailymotion.com). It's just too slow-moving to hold my interest. In class, I gave it a 7 (as reflected below). After trying to rewatch it, I need to revise my grade down to a 6.

But I should note that this did clearly make the case that there is a nonempty intersection of film noir and horror. Logically speaking, I don't see how that's even a question. Film noir is about style -- lighting, camera angles, tone. Horror is defined by the story. There's really nothing to make the two incompatible.

Ratings:

Me: 7
Dave: 9
Ethan: 7
Joe: 10