Title: Stephen King's Cat's Eye
Region: One
Genre: Thriller Anthology
Stars: Drew Barrymore, James Woods,
Alan King, Kenneth McMillan, Robert Hays, and Candy Clark
Writer: Stephen King
Director: Lewis Teague
Languages: English Dolby Surround Sound
Subtitles: English Captions and Closed
Captions and French and Spanish Language Subtitles
Extras: Director’s Commentary, Select
Cast & Crew Filmographies, Theatrical Trailer
Sound: Dolby Surround Sound
Chapter Stops: 28
Theatrical Distributor: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Pictures
Home Video Distributor: Warner Home
Video
Year Of Theatrical Release: 1985/DVD
Release: 2002
MPAA: PG-13
Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera
There is a myth that cats steal the
breath of children in the night. Drawing upon this myth with a trilogy of tales
written for the screen by Stephen King based on his own short stories;
"Stephen King's Cat's Eye" is the second pairing of Writer Stephen
King with Film Director Lewis Teague, who had bought the film adaptation of
"Cujo" to the big screen. Stephen
King film adaptation alumni Drew Barrymore (Firestarter) and award winning
creature designer Carlo Rambaldi were also bought into the project, which was a
vehicle for Barrymore dreamed up by Dino De Laurentis, who had the foresight
that she was one day going to be a movie star. The film also features James
Woods, Alan King, Kenneth McMillan, Robert Hays, and Candy Clark in great
stories held together by a cat that journeys through New York City and Atlantic
City, New Jersey to Wilmington, North Carolina in a series of adventures to
reach a young girl and save her from a breath stealing troll that has taken
residence inside the girl's bedroom. Look for small Stephen King character
cameos by the haunted car "Christine" and a dog with more than a
passing resemblance to "Cujo."
The stories all have a humorous twist
to them with various in jokes like after James Woods has signed on to a
cigarette quitting organization that uses heavy handed methods to get its
clients to quit, Woods is watching TV and he sees David Cronenberg's film
adaptation of "Stephen King's The Dead Zone" and exclaims, "Who
writes this crap?" Woods appeared in David Cronenberg's own feature film
"Videodrome" years earlier. The film is really a reunion of sorts with
Creature Designer Carlo Rambaldi having designed the alien in Stephen
Spielberg's "E.T.," which also starred Drew Barrymore and Rambaldi had
designed the creatures in David Lynch's feature film adaptation of
"Dune," which was also a Dino De Laurentis production and featured
Kenneth McMillan as the evil Barron Harkonnen.
For the first time ever on home video
in America, I think, Warner Home Video has bought “Cat’s Eye” to DVD and
presented the film in the original anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio of
(2.35:1). The image quality looks surprisingly good. There was one instance
where I noticed a little shimmering, but other than that as a whole I doubt
“Cat’s Eye” has ever looked better with rich colors and nice little
details related to Stephen King books and such that add to the fun of watching
the film. Considering this was a low budget film to begin with that then had
another one million dollars knocked off just before production was about to
begin and the film is about 18 years old, this is a very nice transfer and good
work from Warner Home Video.
The English Dolby Surround Soundtrack
is well balanced and clear and there are English Captions and Closed Captions
encoded for the hearing impaired as well as French and Spanish Language
Subtitles options too. Director Lewis Teague gives an interesting audio
commentary track that mentions among other things how he was able to produce the
film under a low budget using various tricks such as miniatures and building a
set at 30 times the natural height to create the illusion that a 4 inch troll
was creeping around a little girl’s bedroom. He mentions how Stephen King was
one of the most down to earth people he had ever met and how he could come back
with several alternate scenes overnight for Teague to choose from when a change
was needed. He also speaks vary favorably of James Woods, Dino De Laurentis,
Robert Hays, Candy Clark as well as Drew Barrymoore throughout the commentary.
He goes into detail about how he shot scenes with “The Police” hit song,
“Ever Breath You Take,” in mind before having the rights to use it and he
mentions the differences between working with cats and dogs as well as the
differences between bringing “Cujo” to the big screen and “Cat’s Eye.”
Overall this is an interesting retrospective commentary. Though he explains
exactly what the original prologue for “Cat’s Eye” was and how it set up
the troll from the very beginning complete with an early child victim and why
the cat is trying to get back and kill it before it steal’s another child’s
breath, and he also even mentions having the footage, the prologue is not
included as an extra on the DVD, which is a shame because even if the footage
looked terrible from age or was over the top as the Director states on the
commentary track, I think fans would have liked to have seen it as an extra
feature like a deleted scene.
Select cast and crew filmographies and
the film’s theatrical trailer, which itself looks surprisingly clean for the
time that has past, wrap up the extra features. The menus are standard
interactive still frames that are easy to navigate. “Cat’s Eye” is
available on DVD-Video now from Warner Home Video.
© Copyright 2002 By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.