The Pumpkin King: CAT’S EYE (1985)
It’s hard not to think of CAT’S EYE as The Other Stephen King anthology film. The two CREEPSHOW films are beloved, and TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE: THE MOVIE had its audience built in from the television show. CAT’S EYE feels like a distant runner up, relegated to a cable television weekend staple. That’s probably how I ended up seeing it at some tender young age, years before my appetite for the scary stuff was developed. Since that initial scarring, I’ve been wary of my rewatches. When I was younger, I stayed away from it strictly because it scared me. Now, it’s about keeping the shred of kindertrauma intact.
Directed by Lewis Teague, CAT’S EYE consists of three stories—the first two from King’s short story collection Night Shift, and the last a new story written by King himself, who also wrote the screenplay. There’s no real connective tissue between the stories save for The Cat, a slinky gray and black cinematic device, who cameos in the first ⅔ of the film and co-stars alongside Drew Barrymore in the final act.
Did I, despite seeing the film to completion quite a few times over the course of my life, still kinda forget what Barrymore’s story was? I did. It wasn’t traumatizing enough to leave a permanent mark the way the first two stories were.
In the many years that passed between my viewings of CAT’S EYE, did I incorrectly move “Cat From Hell,” a segment from TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE, from that movie into this one? Yes, I did.
I was basically rewatching a movie that was entirely new to me.
In “Quitter’s Inc.,” James Woods is Dick, who attempts to quit smoking with the help of an unconventional rehabilitation company. It’s…hard to buy Woods as a regular family man. Even playing it straight, Woods is pure smarm, all smirk. He’s nervous energy at a setting of three, so when he’s cranked up all the way to eight, or nine, when Dick hasn’t had a cigarette in a few days and he knows he’s being watched, the nerves vibrate off him like heat shimmers. Even playing his coolest, he’s scanning the room and looking for an exit. Wood’s entire role is a stuttered chuckle, an attempt at graciousness, the wide-eyed look of discomfort but doing everything to cover it.
It’s dangerous to be unclear about the motivation for why this company is so cutthroat about helping anyone quit. Ostensibly it’s cash, though we never see any exchange between Dick and his handlers. I haven’t read the story in so long, so I don’t remember if the mafioso feel is more obvious in the text, but the stakes are clearly to “your life depends on your success.”
But not just his life. Quitter’s Inc makes it a family affair. There’s a scene in the segment when Dick’s wife, Cindy, is being punished - electrocuted! - for one of his infractions. When I tell you I saw it too young, when I tell you this scene gave me nightmares for years, when I tell you this scene is the reason I even wanted to write about CAT’S EYE, I need you to believe me. I was convinced this torture was happening to this poor woman, calliope music over it and everything. I can watch it now with only a little bit of cringe, but at the time it truly disturbed my sensitive child soul.
If “Quitter’s Inc.” stuck with me through the years, “The Ledge,” the second segment, was a fattening tick on its back. “The Ledge” showed me my first decapitation: action thankfully off-screen, an unexpected head rolling across an Atlantic City penthouse floor. On my first watch, I had an awareness of Robert Hays as “the guy from AIRPLANE!,” despite having no recollection of watching AIRPLANE! as a kid. Yet it was in my consciousness, and while “Quitter’s Inc.” felt too real, at least recognizing Hays as an actor gave me some sense of distance from the horror happening on screen.
Forced to walk around the outside ledge of the highest floor of a hotel, Hays is Norris - a tortured and terrified man on the losing end of a can’t-win bet. The man delivering said bet is a seasoned gambler named Cressner, played by a sweaty and absolutely ruthless Kenneth McMillan. It’s not that I don’t love a Rube Goldberg machine, but the simplicity of the set-up - get around the building alive or I’ll shoot you dead - is the strength of the story. Norris’ affair with Cressner’s wife is a handy catalyst, but Cressner is a man who is obviously comfortable relishing in cruelty and power. His efforts to break Norris’ concentration as Norris edges around the narrow ledge are sick little jokes; like a clown spraying water from a flower, honking an oversized horn. Again, I can see the humor as an adult, the absurdity of his attempts, but when I was a lil one, the meanness of these jokes was jarring and an entirely new tone to me.
CAT’S EYE ends with “General,” the titular cat who is taken in by Amanda (Barrymore) despite her parent’s hesitance. Amanda believes that General will protect her from the monster in her wall, a claim her parents are fast to dismiss. “General” uses the old wives’ tale of a cat stealing a child’s breath as a red herring in what feels like a modern telling of a fairy tale with all the usual elements - a gentle princess, an unexpected hero, a few incidents of violence, an ugly troll.
It’s much more childlike than the other stories, drastically different in tone and in resolution. Amanda, her family, and General all get a happy ending, and so CAT’S EYE does too. A tinkling reprise and kitty cuddles are a strange choice to bring on the credits, to say the least.
CAT’S EYE ends up feeling distinctly divided and uneven; a retro dessert-in-a-box that you mix together, let settle and separate into layers, each a gradient lighter than the one below it. “Quitter’s Inc.” and “The Ledge” are threatening, downright mean, both laced like bad candy apples with venomous humor. They’re excellent companion pieces.
Barrymore’s showcase is the odd story out, the tamest and the sweetest of the three, if you’re comfortable calling attempted child murder “sweet.” After the foundational damage the first two stories did to me as a tender babe, an angry troll jumping up and down in belled shoes is downright adorable.
Happy Halloween!
