1985
Starring: Drew Barrymore, James Woods, Alan King, Kenneth McMillan, Robert Hays.
At this point, I'm a little wary of horror anthologies, it's just hard to get invested in shorter stories even when they are filled with stars. The only one I really like is The Willies, because kids are telling the stories so you know they'll be kind of silly. This one is tied together through a cat's adventures.
We're introduced to the cat in New York, he's running around on the street when captured by a random guy. Dick Morrison (James Woods) is sick of smoking so he heads to Quitters, Inc. The waiting room is super intense, a guy is ripping his hair out with nerves, then his wife comes out and she looks likes she's been ravaged. Dick gets the rundown on how Quitters, Inc. works, they basically watch you all the time so they know if you smoke. Now the cat comes back into the picture, the guy that captured the cat works at Quitters, Inc. The cat is now is a glass walled room, they flip a switch and the floor is electrified so we see the cat jumping around, getting electrocuted. Dick is informed that the first time he smokes, his wife will be thrown in this room. The second time he smokes his young daughter will get the shock floor, the third offense means they'll rape his wife. Dick really wants to quit so he agrees to these ridiculous terms. He goes to a work party where everyone is smoking and he hallucinates that people are cigarettes, but he makes it out without taking a puff. He does well for awhile but then while stuck in traffic he sneaks a cigarette, thinking there's no chance that someone will see him, but he's wrong. The consequences then unfold.
The cat manages to escape the electrified room and gets on a truck headed to Atlantic City. At the entrance to a casino, the cat tries to cross a street that is very busy with traffic. A couple bets Cressner (Kenneth McMillan) that the cat will die, but he thinks the cat will make it. The cat causes a major car accident but does make it across the street alive. Cressner goes to his penthouse, where his goons have kidnapped Johnny Norris (Robert Hays) the man his wife has been cheating on him with. Since Cressner is a betting man, he gives Johnny some options. Johnny has to walk around the ledge of the building and Cressner will let him have his wife and a bunch of money, if he doesn't do it Cressner will frame him for murder or drug trafficking or something. The penthouse must be at least 20 stories up. Johnny takes the challenge and begins his walk on the ledge. He runs into many obstacles aside from just trying to not fall off the building. Cressner taunts him and blasts him with a firehose, and a pigeon keeps pecking at his foot. Amazingly, Johnny makes it, but Cressner planned for this and tells his henchman to shoot him. Johnny gets the gun, shoots the henchman and makes Cressner walk the ledge.
The cat gets on a train and heads down south somewhere. He finds a nice residential home where he meets Amanda (Drew Barrymore) who immediately wants to adopt him. At the same time that the cat find the house, a troll runs in and makes a cave in Amanda's bedroom wall. The mom, Sally Ann (Candy Clark) hates cats and she thinks the cat will smother Amanda in her sleep and take her breath. Little do they they know that that is the Troll's plan and the cat was protecting Amanda. Sally Ann takes the cat to a shelter but escapes in time to battle the troll as it tries to take Amanda's breath. The cat wins in the end and finds a new home.
The troll versus cat fight scene is really good, it's worth sitting through the other stories to get to that one. I would give an animal Oscar to the cat for excellent cat acting. I thought that Cressner looked like that disgusting syphilis sore Baron Harokonnen from Dune and once I looked it up I was right, Kenneth McMillan played them both. There are lots of little funny bits that make this enjoyable. I have read some of Stephen King's short story collections, they're good and they work for TV episodes I just have a hard time when they're jammed together to make full length movie.
No comments:
Post a Comment