Review by
Jason Abbey
Directed by: David Lowell Rich
Starring: Michael Sarrazin, Gayle Hunnicutt, Eleanor Parker, Tim Henry
Eye of the Cat mixes old dark house spooky goings on,
cunning murder plots and a modish (at the time) hippy free love in (and in
the theatrical cut more Pussy than a catatonic Wylie (Michael Sarrazin) can handle). Its two biggest selling points are a script by
Psycho
screenplay writer Joe Stefano and a score by Lalo Schifrin.
Its biggest weakness is that while cats can be annoying as all hell, even
the biggest ailurophobe is liable to utter nary a squeak of terror at
these overfed balls of fur.
Most of the fun is of a bitchy scabrous nature Wylie is a licentious free
spirit as amoral as he is good looking but also wonderfully gullible. Like
the idiot savant stoner characters that Brad Pitt is so fond of playing,
he is easily snared into Kassia’s (Gayle Hunnicutt) plan to wheedle
his way back into his wheelchair bound Aunt Danny’s (Eleanor Parker) good graces and bump her off once he has been placed as the sole
beneficiary of her will. Everything should be fab and groovy, but Wylie
don’t dig moggies and Aunt Danny seems to have inherited a whole clowder
of cats with a taste for raw meat.
What makes the plot ever so strange is that despite the prevalence of
felines, Aunt Danny is no crazy cat lady. She does not seem to
particularly like or care for them. That’s left to Wylie’s brother Luke
(Tim Henry), who submissively tends to her needs and dumps the cats
once his brother returns on the scene. Aunt Danny also seems to have
designs on Wylie that if not exactly oedipal (they are related from
marriage rather than blood), are also slightly unwholesome considering she
has known him since a child.
David Lowell Rich is very much a journeyman director. Here he is
efficient and save for a wheelchair bound set piece utilising the steep
streets of San Francisco, unshowy and unfussy. What he never really gets a
handle on is the whole cat business. Sometimes he leans on supernatural
shenanigans (the TV version seems more overtly supernatural by having one
seemingly vengeance driven cat refusing to go away) while at other times
he feels more at home with the cynical plotting of his leads.
Sarrazin and Hunnicutt are great here, charming cynical moral vacuums who
you expect to have a cackling comeuppance in the mould of the old EC
Comics' Tales from the Crypt. Surrounded by lackeys and a target for their
malfeasance who is hardly innocent herself, you're half rooting for them
to succeed. Stefano has a way with double-entendres and badinage that the
director leans into, focussing on their relationship so exclusively so as
to hide the sleight of hand he performs at the climax.
As a cynical blackly comic thriller at the fag end of the '60s with free
love and the odd catfight, it’s a serviceable watch. As a horror in which
the cats fight, it doesn’t raise the hairs on the back of the neck. It is
hard to be horrified when your foe could be vanquished with a can of
Whiskers and a tickle under the chin.
Extras:
As well as the rare theatrical version you also get a rough around the
edges TV version, unique in that it drastically changes the impact of
the final third of the film from cats plural to cats singular. The
extras also handily have a compare and contrast of the two films for
those who just want to examine the difference between the theatrical and
TV cut.
Kim Newman provides his usual erudite knowledge of the horror and in
this case, feline horror subgenre. An audio commentary from Kevin Lyons
is enjoyable but unessential.
As ever with Indicator's output you also get theatrical trailers, radio
spots and an image gallery. For those who get the limited-edition
release there is also a 36-page booklet including an essay by Kasandra
O’Connell, as well as excerpts from the original pressbook, an interview
with Gayle Hunnicutt and an overview of contemporary responses to the
film.
Not as extensive as some of the label's releases but the two cuts of the
film makes it an essential own for kitty cultists.
Eye of the Cat is on UK blu-ray
from Powerhouse Film from June 28th.