EYE OF THE CAT (1969)
Article 2303 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-16-2007
Posting Date: 12-2-2007
Directed by David Lowell Rich
Featuring Michael Sarrazin, Gayle Hunnicutt, Eleanor Parker

A woman dying of emphysema has decided to will all her money to her cats unless her favorite nephew decides to move in with her. This prompts the woman’s hairdresser into contacting the nephew and setting up a plot to murder the aunt for her money. Unfortunately, the nephew suffers from a dread fear of cats…

The basic premise of this horror story is rather silly, but it’s far from unworkable, and in the right hands it could be effective enough. Unfortunately, the movie is only occasionally in the right hands. Its worst problem is that it’s largely setting itself up for the big ending, and once you have all the pieces in place for that, you still have a lot of time to fill, and the movie really doesn’t effectively fill it; the first hour of the movie is very slow, wanders off into tangents, and only occasionally holds the interest. The movie really kicks into high gear with an exciting scene in which a wheelchair shorts out, and from here the movie never lets up, though I do feel that the movie ends up giving away one of its main plot twists too early in the proceeding. The movie does a fine job of turning house cats into creatures of terror, and I also like the somewhat odd ending, though I could see how others might be disappointed by it. If the first hour of the movie was good, I’d recommend it; as it is, wise use of the fast forward button improves things immensely.