Tonight I talked my fiance into watching "Stephen King's Cat's Eye" with me. This was one of those movies I remember from when I was a little girl. I don't ever remember thinking it was scary, just kind of cool. Watching it as an adult, I'm seeing things in it I hadn't noticed before, like all the other Stephen King references (Cujo, Christine, and The Dead Zone in the first hour) and the comic aspect of the whole thing. Not to mention the cute kitty.
The movie is split into three short stories. I know for sure the first two are based off of stories that King wrote. I don't remember ever reading the third, so even now I'm not sure if it's an original or not. Oh sure, I could imdb it, but it's not that important to me really, so I'll leave that to anyone else who needs to know.
The first story is about a man show signs up with "Quitters, Inc." to stop smoking. Their methods are a little extreme, but apparently effective. The company's constant stalkers keep an eye on the guy (played by a very young James Woods) and report to headquarters if he has a slip up. First offense, his wife gets her feet singed by an electric floor. Second offense, daughter gets to do the same dance, and so on. Kind of sadistic, but the story is filled with funny stuff. My favorite is the party where JW's characters sees dancing cigarette packs, children smoking up, and the head of Quitter's Inc. in a silver jumpsuit singing "I'll Be Watching You."
The second story takes a little more serious turn when an ex tennis player takes a wager from the husband of the woman he's been having an affair with: walk the whole perimeter of the high ledge of a building and survivie or go to jail for faked drug possession.
While the cat is just the side character in the first two stories, he gets second billing next to Drew Barrymore in the third story, which is about a little wall troll that likes to steal people's breath. The troll is more funny than creepy, and it's a head to head match, troll vs. cat in a knockout fight to the death. Okay, so that might be exaggerating a little bit. The cat also gets to go up against the bitchy anti-cat mother who's convinced he's no good.
It's 80s cheese meets tame horror and it still remains one of my favorite movies from the little girl years.
I remember this movie! You are right that it is more funny than scary. Though, I must admit it kept me from ever wanting to take up smoking.
ReplyDelete