Cat's Eye

I had one of those "I don't know what I was expecting" moments while watching Cat's Eye. I'm a cat lover and thought, "Well, it's called 'Cat's Eye' but I bet that's just like, you know, a clever thing. I bet there really isn't much about cats or anything in it." Well at least nothing happened to a cat's eye. That's a positive.

I did a quick google after I finished watching, you see I'm quite good at internet, so I searched: "cat's eye" "stephen king" "animal cruelty" and figured that would tell me if what I had just watched was not so much entertainment as a brutal animal snuff film, like The Adventures of Milo & Otis. (You don't believe me? Google it.) Nothing really turned up, except for a number of blogs talking about how they had just watched the film and were surprised at all the animal cruelty. A lot of these blogs also talked about how Stephen King is a cat lover. I can't believe a cat lover would endorse a movie that actually put cats in real danger/pain.

The Adventures of Milo & Otis is a big scary question mark on the animal rights radar in that it was made in Japan and there were no animal welfare advocates on the set during the production. But "Cat's Eye" was made in America and in the 80s, so you'd assume that there was someone there who was making sure that they weren't going through 8 "Generals" (the name of the cat) a week.

So yeah, there are some scenes in "Cat's Eye" that are a little tough to watch, without knowing whether or not a cat is really, oh, let's say, getting electrocuted through the floor. Or when General is weaving in and out of traffic or being soaked in a storm.

That being said, it's still not a very good movie. "Cat's Eye" is a series of 3 vignettes based on Stephen King stories (with a script from King). The three tales are connected through the travels of the aforementioned cat, General who gets chased around the eastern side of America, briefly interacting with horrific scenarios.

The first tale, "Quitters Inc." is one I actually remember reading (from Night Shift? I believe?) and I was excited to see the adaptation. I was also curious as to why I had never really heard about the adaptation since the story really flipped my wig when I read it, I assumed the filmed version would be equally wiggy.

The story is that James Woods, desperate to quit smoking goes to an organization called Quitters Inc. who help you quit by stalking you and punishing you severely for cheating. The first time you slip up, your wife gets stuck in a room with an electric floor and tortured while 60s pop music blares. The second time it's your daughter. The third time your wife gets raped and the fourth time you get killed.

This premise, while at first eyebrow raising, in terms of "Oh that's a clever, dark, little how do you do" really requires a lot of set up and follow through to work. But unfortunately there isn't much of either in the short. James Woods is great but there are just way too many questions that don't even try to get answered and a lot that just doesn't make sense. For instance at the beginning when the CEO tells Woods about why he started the company, he tells a tale of his father dying from smoking. Then towards the end the "sinister twist" (if you can call it that) suddenly comes after Woods is told that he needs to not gain weight from quitting and that if he goes over 165lbs they'll cut his wife's little finger off. Why? When was weight gain ever on the table? Also basic things like contracts and cops, some kind of discussion of legality would've helped. Not that it needs to be real life legal, but at least go through the motions of Woods signing a contract and have that be thrown in his face if he tries to quit quitting. There's also an element of paranoia to the story, where Quitters Inc. has people watching you everywhere you go, but that's never really given enough room to fully develop either. It feels like a bland, TV show version of a pretty twisted King story and while it's entertaining for the Woods performance (if you're a Woods completest like we all are) it's not much fun.

The second story, The Ledge really messed me up. It probably wouldn't be considered an actual "horror" story (just like the first tale could also be argued as something else as well) but it really, really freaked me out. A tennis pro (because that really is the go to, stock character for "the dude balling your wife) who is having an affair with an Atlantic City mobster's wife gets put into a pretty harrowing scenario by said mobster. He has to walk the ledge that circles near the top of the mobster's skyscraper, walk the whole ledge all the way around, if he wants to not get sent to jail (there's a little set up they've prepared for him in the parking lot) and if he makes it, he gets the wife, and the money (apparently there's money involved which isn't explained that well). I am terrified of heights and the shots of Robert Hays edging around the building had me biting my fist and practically hyperventilating. As he slowly makes his way around, on a tiny slab of concrete, the mobster messes with him, dumping water on him, trying to scare him, anything to try to make him slip. While the scenes of clinging to the ledge were extremely well done, any of the scenes with something (or someone!) falling were unfortunately products of the time (the mid 80s) and don't look that good (or good). However I will say that I was out of breath and my palms were sweaty by the end of it, which I feel is high marks for a movie that is selling itself as horror.

Seriously, The Ledge tapped into this primal part of me. This fear I have of being put into no win scenarios where one option is bad and the other option is mind blowingly terrifying. I know that SAW has built a franchise around this basic conceit but my fears are never that pronounced. I've been in tall buildings and thought, "What if something horrible was happening in this building and I had to escape through the window and climb around?" things like that, like not "CHOOSE BETWEEN YOUR FOOT AND THE SAW" or whatever happened in SAW, I forget it's been like a decade, but just having to do something (for me, usually with either heights or closed spaces) and being forced into it while terrified.

The third story "General" is all about our feline protagonist, who has been getting weirdly visited by as spectral Drew Barrymore as he's traveled around, with Drew appearing on TVs or in mannequins, asking for him and talking about the monster out to get her. There's a monster living in her wall and she needs General to save her. This segment really messed with the cat lover in me, for even though everything worked out (oh, spoiler alert) there is a scene where it looks like General is going to be put to sleep in an extremely slummy looking shelter (there is literally black smoke pouring out of the shelter's chimney when Drew's mother arrives, carrying General in a box she trapped him in) and while General manages to escape the Kill Kill Shelter, he leaves behind lots of other cats (and kittens!) when he does so. That was a little heartbreaking. 

The final segment is the most actual, real, straight up, horror segment with a monster and everything, but the monster may look intimidating but he does this weird little Gremlins, under his breath, type talking thing which makes him goofy, and he has bells on his hat, which is also goofy and he doesn't really do much and dies in a pretty goofy way.

It wasn't a great film, but I enjoyed it for it's place in cinema history, which I believe is probably pretty small. It was cool to see the little Stephen King easter eggs (the Cujo and Christine cameos in the beginning for instance), it was fun to see everybody young, it was interesting to see the world of 1985 through the eyes of a smoker (back when you could still smoke pretty much everywhere and everyone did all the time) and it was exhilarating to get my adrenaline pumping with the high flying horror of The Ledge. If you've got 90 minutes and change to kill go for it, but don't stress out if you go your whole life not seeing it. Well I mean, if you're on your death bed stressing out about which Stephen King film you didn't see, I'm probably not going to be able to comfort you, just let go and go into the light.