10 Horror Anthologies You Must See Before You Die
5. Cat’s Eye
After getting a taste for horror anthologies with Creepshow, Stephen King followed up with Cat’s Eye in 1985. Directed by Lewis Teague who King had previously teamed up with on the film adaption of his novel Cujo, the anthology features a trio of stories loosely linked by a plucky alley cat.
The first two tales are both adapted from short stories penned by King and follow the misfortunate moggie as he gets caught up with a rather sinister self-help firm that specialises in smoking cessation and a sadistic gangster who loves to gamble and makes a dangerous wager with his wife’s bit on the side. The third segment, penned specially for the film, stars a baby-faced Drew Barrymore as a young girl terrorised by an evil troll with only the cat to save her.
Up there with the more superior Stephen King adaptations, Cat’s Eye is brimming with the writer’s trademark black humour and bent for the macabre. King’s constant readers might just pick up on a handful of cleverly inserted references to his previous works, too: a certain familiar-looking red Plymouth Fury and bloodied St Bernard might make a cameo when you’re least expecting it.
Standout Segment:
The best story is the film’s first, ‘Quitters Inc’. James Woods stars a chain-smoker who signs up with the titular self-help company in a bid to kick his dirty habit but soon discovers their approach to quitting smoking involves some rather unorthodox and extreme methods. You know, stuff like torture by electric shock and digit dismemberment – that kind of thing.