BEFORE: Throughout this process I've managed to stretch myself by watching horror films each October. Before that, I'd only seen tame stuff like "Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein" and of course "Ghostbusters". When I was 14 or 15 I watched "Poltergeist", which was promoted heavily with Steven Spielberg's name, and I went in thinking it was akin to "E.T.", which was a huge mistake. I slept with the lights on for weeks after that.
Anyway, even though I've made great strides in this category, I'll wager that there's still a majority of horror films that I've intentionally ignored. I have covered everything from "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Omen" films to the work of M. Night Shyamalan, tales from Edgar Allen Poe, a vampire chain, a werewolf chain, and stinkers like "The Witches of Eastwick" and the "Underworld" films. By 2012 I'd pretty much tackled all of the horror films on my list, but I came back to the category in 2013 with "Shaun of the Dead", "Frankenweenie", "Fright Night" and "Dark Shadows".
But still, what's left untackled is quite astonishing - not that I have any intention of watching these, because I do enjoy getting a good night's sleep: the "Saw" films, the "Friday the 13th" films, the "Halloween" series, anything with the words "Texas" and "Chainsaw" in it, "Evil Dead", "Dawn of the Dead", "Night of the Living Dead", the "Nightmare on Elm St." series, the "Paranormal Activity" films, the "Scream" series, the "Hellraiser" series, "Hostel", "Re-Animator", "Human Centipede", "The Ring", "The Grudge", "The Purge", and so on. I just have no interest in slasher films or torture porn, or anything that I've deemed too disturbing or disgusting. I'm sure there are a lot more I failed to mention here.
Linking from "R.I.P.D.", Jeff Bridges was also in a film titled "See You in the Morning" with Drew Barrymore (last seen in "Everyone Says I Love You").
AFTER: While I'm listing things, I started taking on films based on Stephen King stories back in 2010. I started with "The Shining", then followed up with "Silver Bullet", "Firestarter", "The Dead Zone", "Thinner", "Christine", "Maximum Overdrive", "Misery", "It", "The Dark Half", and "Secret Window". In October 2011 I continued with "Needful Things", and earlier this year I watched "Hearts in Atlantis" and also "Apt Pupil" (which both sort of fell outside the horror category), and that brings us up to date. I'll take on 3 more King stories this week, but since I only have so many slots left, the late arrival "Dreamcatcher" had to be pushed on to next year's chain. I'll make that work out somehow.
Anyway, "Cat's Eye" is a 3-story anthology film. We used to have all kinds of these things, like "Tales from the Darkside" and "Twilight Zone: the Movie". Some people probably think this is the best way to adapt Stephen King, stick a bunch of short stories together and make a feature film - this way if people don't like one story, they're bound to like one of the others, right? After watching this, however, I'm not so sure that's a great plan.
First problem, other than the cat, the stories have absolutely nothing in common - and the cat ends up sort of shoehorned into the first two stories, and only plays a major role in the third. From what I've read online, there was supposed to be more bridging material to explain the cat's purpose, but it didn't make it into the film. As a result, there is an opening sequence starring the cat where it gets chased by a Cujo-like dog, and also passes a car meant to look like Christine - but then the cat looks into a store window, and sees a ghostly apparition of Drew Barrymore superimposed over one of the mannequins, telling the cat to "Go and find it!". Umm, find what? A home? A mouse? A can of tuna? A sense of purpose? This is never explained, so why the hell was it left in the film?
Worse yet, we see another character played by Drew Barrymore in the bridging sequence between stories #1 and 2, where she seems to be an actress in a cat food commercial, feeding a cat that looks a bit like our feline hero. Put this together with the fact that Barrymore plays a normal, non-dead, non-actress little girl in the third story, and everything is now super confusing. What exactly is this cat's backstory, is the actress from the cat food commercial now a ghost, what is the cat supposed to be finding, and why does the audience have to do all the heavy lifting figuring all this out?
Let's get to the main stories, the meat of the sandwich and perhaps treat the bridging sequences as an odd-tasting condiment or something. The first story is about a man who wants to quit smoking, and he signs up for an experimental program that appears to be run by the mob, who has found that their unique skill set can come in handy when people need to be cured of their addiction. They monitor all of the man's activities, and the first time he smokes a cigarette, they torture his wife. Second time, they move on to his daughter, and beyond that things start to get quite nasty. Hey, whatever works for the guy, but most people just get the nicotine patch or something.
The second story takes place in Atlantic City (umm, the cat takes the Staten Island ferry to get there, which isn't possible, but whatever...) where a gambler gets revenge on the tennis pro who's sleeping with his wife by making a very dangerous bet with him. If he can walk around the casino tower on a high ledge, he gets the girl and the chance to leave town in one piece. Yeah, if you've got acrophobia this one can get you where it hurts.
The final story is the weirdest one, when the cat makes it to North Carolina by train he finds a little girl who looks a lot like the mannequin ghost and the cat-food commercial actress (sorry, I just can't let this go, it's really a mess...) and her parents won't let her take in the stray cat because of that old myth about cats stealing the breath from babies. But then she's attacked by a little troll creature who does the EXACT same thing (what are the odds?) and the cat comes to her defense.
To me the big problem about assembling a film out of short stories, jigsaw puzzle style, is starting with pieces of different shapes that were never meant to be together, and forcing them to fit. When you do that, and step back and look at the big picture, it just doesn't really form a coherent image.
Also starring James Woods (last seen in "The Hard Way"), Alan King, Robert Hays (last seen in "Superhero Movie"), James Naughton (last seen in "The Birds II: Land's End"), Candy Clark (last seen in "Zodiac"), Kenneth McMillan, Mike Starr (last seen in "Snake Eyes"), with cameos from James Rebhorn (last seen in "Shadows and Fog"), Patricia Kalember, Charles S. Dutton.
RATING: 3 out of 10 electric shocks
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