Eye of the Cat (1969)

Well, EYE OF THE CAT is not really horror - despite it's tag line of "Terror that takes you beyond any you've ever known!" ((not true at all)) , but I had so much fun watching it that I thought I'd include it here on the blog anyway! :::grin::  Plus, it was written by Joseph Stefano of PSYCHO, PSYCHO IV, THE OUTTER LIMITS,  and the SWAMP THING TV series, so he's in the family. Thank you to Agent Dee for the recommend!

EYE OF THE CAT tells the story of Wylie (Michael Sarrazin), a pretty boy drifter/hippy type that happily humps around with various ladies and crashes with them at their places until something better comes along. The something better here is Kassia Lancaster (Gayle Hunnicutt) who has a plan to use Wylie to get his rich and sickly Aunt Danny's (Eleanor Parker) money and estate. Wylie's brother Luke (Tim Henry) takes loving care of the Aunt, but Wylie was always her favorite. Much TOO favorite...really. :::cringe:::: And Kassia is just evil, saying that after Wylie gets his Aunt to change the will, she'll simply killer her, then they can live happily ever after. What could possibly go wrong?





Wylie's deathly afraid of cats and his Aunt has about twenty of them! hehehehe

The film is a fantastic product of it's time. It's a fun time capsule of 1960's San Francisco. As a former resident, it was fun to see the old City and Sausalito in the year I was born.

Eleanor Parker as Aunt Danny

It's a fun character study as well. Sarrazin is a ton of fun as this drifter hippy cool guy and this whole attitude towards the situation reflects the way he goes through life as well. Hunnicutt is fun as the vampy, evil mastermind behind the plan. It's fun stuff for sure. But, I was really mesmerized by Eleanor Parker. She was stunning! She was 47 when this film was made and I believe she overshadowed the lovely, 26 year old Hunnicutt, though she was enchanting as well.

Gayle Hunnicutt

I had forgotten that Hunnicutt was in another favorite of mine, THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE in 1973.










The story plays like a Hitchcock story and it's very engaging for being so simple. I was thinking that it might be able to slip onto my GIALLO list, but it's really pretty far away from that particular sub-genre, though there are some themes at play that....hell...I'm going to go ahead and add it to the list! This has enough giallo elements to consider it one of the fringe giallo style films for sure.

If you like story based, character study films, you'll want to check out EYE OF THE CAT for sure!