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Cat's Eye (1985) - Kitty Across America

 



There are two important facts about me, two important obsessions that haunt me: a love of anthology series and a love of Stephen King adaptations of all shapes and colors. As sometimes I imply on here, I’m a regular collector of physical media from VHS and Laserdiscs to DVDs and Blurays, and a big bulk of my DVD and Bluray collection are horror or other genre anthology TV series and you better bet I own physical copies of a number of anthology films too including both closely associated with King (as part of the same $20 box set): Creepshow and Cat’s Eye. One day I will formally write a review of Creepshow but I’ll spoil my feelings about it by saying it is absolutely one of my favorite horror films of all time to the point that it is almost certainly in my top 20, maybe top 10 favorite films of all time. So the first time I watched Cat’s Eye, which I believe was maybe pre-Covid, I had one of my favorite films ever made to compare it to and it sagged in my estimation as a result. I was determined this time to come at it fresh and compare it to no other film than itself.

I’m gonna break from my usual format of opening-bad-good-conclusion for these reviews due to the unique format of an anthology film and instead give my impressions about the individual components.

Connective Tissue: I think this was the biggest issue with my first watch. While I’ve always loved animals, when I first watched this film I still considered myself a full male who even into their late 20s was still struggling with sexuality and gender issues that wouldn’t become fully clear until years later, and I was much “harder” in most ways as a result. I’ve since embraced a great softness in life that sees me spend so much of my life just enjoying cute pictures and videos of animals and sending them to my friends and embracing my inner femininity and kindheartedness in numerous ways. Which is all to say that now I can really enjoy just watching a cat charmingly navigate different environments along the east coast and regularly being spoken to by the spirit of Drew Barrymore when it seemed incredibly “90s children’s movie” the first time I watched it. People are often mean to the cat who gets the name of General, but he always gets the last laugh and is sly and courageous and I don’t know how there was a version of me that didn’t enjoy this.

First Segment: Smokers Inc is the star of the show here, not just being the best written, acted, and constructed of the segments but also because its source material is an iconic King short story from his beloved Night Shift collection of the late 70s. James Woods is the biggest reason that this succeeds as the businessman trying to quit smoking recommended a service for people like him, he was at the peak of his powers as a leading man in the 80s at this point coming off the heels of the likes of Once Upon a Time in America, Videodrome, and Salvador and even though he would become a complete piece of human garbage later in life it is hard to deny his neurotic charm or expressive face here. Comic icon Alan King who was once a regular guest host of both the Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show plays the mysterious and incredibly intimidating Dr. Donatti with creepy, sadistic gusto that gives the character an almost otherworldly feel even when keeping one foot in the world of gangsters. Both bring dark, ironic humor to their roles while Woods sells the dystopian feel of his situation and the agony of quitting smoking. This is the best looking segment, though they all have their strengths, with a lot of surreal distortion and paranoid framing. The end stinger feels the most Creepshow-like this film gets, and is a capper to a genuine A effort.

Second Segment: The story to this one is so simple as to be a detriment, unlike the first segment it doesn’t feel like a distinctly King-ian story, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing cause it does give off-vibes of a different kind of Pre-Comics Code title, like a story you’d read in Shock SuspenStories or other thriller-oriented EC comics. A jilted, wealthy man who will gamble on anything gambles on the life of his wife’s lover and her hand. A former tennis pro has to completely scale a narrow ridge on a tall building. Robert Hays in a rare dramatic role in the era is fine, he mostly just has to act really scared and occasionally say “damn you” for most of it and he does so well. Kenneth McMillan, whom as both a David Lynch fanperson through and through and somebody who owns two different copies of the original Salem’s Lot miniseries I am hardwired to enjoy, easily steals the show with his almost childlike malice and poor sportsmanship, soaking up every second he is on screen down to where he’s being held at gunpoint and just casually starts flipping through a Penthouse Magazine. He’s great. The segment actually has some really solid visual FX work here through a mixture of mattes, sets, and film manipulation that does a pretty reasonable job of giving a sense of on-the-edge danger even if it starts to cheapen after a while. The ending is pretty predictable, but again, is very EC Comics so I can forgive that. I liked this segment a lot more upon my second watch, even if it is pretty slight.

The third segment of the film I hated the first time and it brought my overall score of the film down a lot, but again, I am a softer and more cuddly Ben than I once was and a young Drew Barrymore is as talented and adorable as ever and it is lovely to see her interact with a real animal rather than a fictional friend like ET. Both parents, even as they take different approaches, seem to have their daughter’s best interests at heart and are played pretty well by both actors in as much as the segment calls for. The cat footage is wonderful, we all knew General was a hero in the making. The true star of this segment is the special effects which include oversized props, projection, forced perspective, some blue screen effects and all the state of the art practical effects available to them at the time and it is really just a delight to see the evil little gremlin living in Drew’s walls interacting with the world around it in the pre-digital era. It is easily the most PG of this PG-13 film, and is a little precious for its own good but SFX keeps you around.

Finally I just want to make a note, while very much implied in each segment review, that this is a pretty well directed film. The director, Lewis Teague, previously adapted Cujo from King and was one of the lesser known Roger Corman proteges who had a couple early collaborations with the great John Sayles including the solid Robert Forster Jaws knockoff vehicle Alligator. He does a good job, directing each segment a little differently based on the needs of the story and incorporating the parts of a fairly FX heavy film with few wires showing. His cinematographer certainly helps matters, with Jack Cardiff being the man responsible for shooting the two arguably best films by Powell and Pressburger in The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus, some of the lovely looking films ever committed to celluloid. A lot of contemporary reviews, even negative ones, called this film stylish and I think that is fair to say even if it won’t necessarily blow you away.

I did NOT mean for this review to be so long, so I’ll just sum up by saying that I’m really glad I gave this film a second shot and no longer regret the fact that I own it as part of the King of Horror box set, even through for the most part I’d call it a thriller rather than horror. With some years passed, new perspectives, and a bigger heart the film scratches my itches a lot more than it once did even if it doesn’t come very close to approaching the greatness of its cooler older sibling in Creepshow.

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