CAT’S EYE
(1985)
The film Cat’s Eye was produced during an extraordinarily prolific period in Stephen King’s career, when there seemed to be almost as many movies made from his novels as there were books being published. During the preceding two-year period, no less than six motion pictures were produced based on his works: Cujo (1983), The Dead Zone (1983), Christine (1983), Children of the Corn (1984), Firestarter (1984), and Silver Bullet (1985).
What is perhaps most noteworthy about the relatively minor Cat’s Eye is that it was only the second original screenplay of his to be produced, and that the author intentionally made fun of several established elements of his still-burgeoning Stephen King Universe.
The movie is also noteworthy in that King was not responsible for its genesis. Veteran producer Dino De Laurentiis, who would eventually be responsible for a half dozen movies based on the author’s work, held the screen rights to several of the remaining short stories from Night Shift (1978). (King, of course, had already adapted some of them for his first produced screenplay, Creepshow, in 1983.) De Laurentiis had been so impressed with Drew Barrymore’s work in the yet-to-be-released Firestarter that he flew to Bangor, Maine, to convince King to write a script that would
not only be based on those unused stories from Night Shift, but would somehow feature rising star Barrymore in each episode.
Intrigued by the challenge, King readily agreed, but with a hidden agenda—he would have as much fun in amusing his audience as he would in trying to frighten them. (He also agreed to work within the restrictions of a PG-13 rating. Typically a horror movie was produced with the understanding that it would receive an R, or “Restricted,” rating.) What he also attempted—but largely failed in—was to conceal the fact that the movie, like Creepshow, would also be an anthology of unrelated stories. In theory, a cat was to be the connecting link between each of the tales, each of which take place in a different part of the United States.
Based on two previously published stories—“Quitters Inc.” and “The Ledge”—and a new one called “The General,” Cat’s Eye is unquestionably and overtly an anthology film. It shares much in spirit with the adaptations that were used in Creepshow in that King purposely attempted to blend a satisfying mixture of humor and horror, of gore and guffaws.
To a large degree, the ninety-three-minute feature succeeds on that intended middle ground—especially considering the MPAA rating and the mainstream audience for which it was intended. Unfortunately, in the form that the picture was finally released, audiences were immediately confused by, rather than drawn into, the story line. Who was the anonymous cat? Why was this ghostly vision of a little girl speaking to him as if he might be a former pet? What is the cat traveling across America in search of? For what is not widely known is that the first part of the wraparound story to the entire movie, although shot, was removed from the completed film after being seen by only a handful of preview audiences.
The way King originally wrote the movie, the narrative opens with the funeral of a little girl who has died in her sleep for reasons never clearly explained. Her mother, insane with grief, believes that somehow the girl’s pet cat had “stolen her life’s breath” (as was believed in ancient times by some European cultures) and was the cause of her sudden demise. Going berserk, she attempts to kill the cat with an Uzi machine gun. The cat manages to escape, and the ghost of the little girl urges the feline to find the supernatural creature that actually stole her life—a hideous little troll that secretly lived in the walls of her bedroom.
Studio executives at MGM were concerned that audiences wouldn’t respond favorably to a movie that opened with the funeral of a child, nor would they react well to seeing a harmless cat being put in such extreme peril. And so the prologue was deleted, which meant that anyone who did see the film would wonder why star Drew Barrymore (who plays multiple
roles) would first appear as a ghost, and why this seemingly ordinary cat was wandering in and out of each different plot line. (Of course, the fact that this was promoted as “the latest Stephen King thriller” should have tipped off potential audiences that they weren’t going to see Terms of Endearment.)
If we disregard the crippled wraparound story, what remains is certainly entertaining enough—albeit not particularly memorable or distinctive. Cat’s Eye is perhaps only important as an affectionate send-up of what was already recognizably the Stephen King Universe. For besides the considerable novelty and suspense inherent in the stories themselves, King demonstrates from the outset (with the full cooperation of director Lewis Teague, who had previously helmed Cujo) that the world’s bestselling horror author was not above poking fun at himself. Consider that:
• Early on, an obviously rabid St. Bernard chases the cat. (Cujo)
• The cat is nearly run over by a red ’58 Plymouth Fury. (Christine)
• Morrison complains, “I don’t know who writes this crap!” while watching a horror movie starring Christopher Walken and Herbert Lom on television. (It’s The Dead Zone.)
• Morrison’s daughter attends a private school appropriately called “Saint Stephen’s School for the Exceptional.”
• Amanda’s mother is reading an appropriately scary novel in bed. (It’s Pet Sematary.)
Unlike Creepshow, in which the stories that were adapted for the screen were relatively obscure, the stories adapted for Cat’s Eye are familiar to most long-time King readers from their appearance in Night Shift. Therefore, we have chosen to consider the original stories as published in Night Shift to be “in continuity.” They are covered in that section, and thus only the original story “The General” will be dealt with here.
“The General”
Here we follow the trail of the apparently indestructible cat (who made fleeting appearances in the previous two episodes) to the home of another little girl, this time in Wilmington, North Carolina. (It’s now irrelevant
whether this is the same child whom the cat had been seeing in ghostly visions previously throughout the story line.) There the cat—now named “the General”—battles a deadly little troll that intends to steal the life force of this young girl while she sleeps. Naturally, her unsuspecting father (James Naughton) and mother (Candy Clark) have no idea what kind of mortal danger their daughter is truly in after they go to bed. They mistakenly believe that the General is the cause of their daughter’s vivid nightmares. Ultimately, good triumphs over evil in this overt tale of the supernatural, as both the youngster and the cat (even though it has no doubt used up most of its nine lives) survive the final attack of the horrid little monster. To keep the bizarre incident a secret, Amanda sweetly blackmails her still-perplexed parents into letting the General join their little family.
“THE GENERAL”: PRIMARY SUBJECTS
AMANDA: A precocious little girl who suffers from bad dreams about a tiny monster coming into her room late at night when everyone else is asleep and trying to steal her life force through her breath. Of course, Amanda is correct in her wild belief that it is more than just a bad dream, even if she can’t convince her understandably skeptical parents. Fortunately for her, she is able to convey her fears to the stray cat she calls the General, and this brave feline is instrumental in the destruction of the deadly troll.
HUGH: Amanda’s sympathetic dad, he doesn’t believe her story of a monster hiding inside the walls of her room, but fortunately for her, he does share her innate love of cats. He sides with Amanda every time her mother tries to convince them that the General is the monster in the child’s nightmares.
SALLY ANN: Amanda’s less than sympathetic mom, who does not believe in monsters lurking in the closet or skulking about under her daughter’s bed. Worse still, she is definitely not a cat lover, and at one point captures the General and brings him to an animal shelter to be put to sleep.
Of course, once she realizes that the animal has somehow truly saved her only child’s life, she finally relents on her firm anti-feline policy.
THE TROLL IN THE WALL: This nameless creature invades the home of Amanda and her parents. True to legend, the little monster comes out only at night, and scampers close to the face of the sleeping child. Then it tries to suck out the youngster’s very life force by magically stealing the breath from her body. Although armed with a tiny dagger, it still cannot survive a wild battle to the death with the faithful cat known only as “the General.”
CAT’S EYE: TRIVIA
• Country-and-western singer Ray Stevens sings the original theme song “Cat’s Eye” over the movie’s end credits.
• The prop department made a bed for “the General” sequence that was later cited in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s largest bed.
• The screenplay for “The General” was later published in Screamplays (Del Rey, 1997), edited by Richard Chizmar and Martin Greenberg.