] In the film An American Werewolf in London, movie audiences watch breathlessly as the charming young hero turns into a grizzly werewolf bent on the destruction of the human population. [2] Similarly a high point in the film Cat People is the moment when the exquisitely beautiful Nastassia Kinski slowly and horribly changes into a monstrous, bloodthirsty leopard. [3] If older horror films, like the 1940 original version of Cat People, lack such gruesome scenes, it is because their creator did not have the technical sophistication to produce them. [4] However, to the best of their ability even the makers of early horror films tried to put the mysterious moment of metamorphosis on film, as movies like Dr.jekyII and Mr.Hyde readily attest [5] Clearly there is something strangely compelling about the idea of human metamorphosis that make such scenes a crucial ingredient in horror film.