It's popularly opined that humans do not deserve dogs, but this sentiment is revealed as plainly disingenuous by years of popular culture. Of course we believe humans deserve dogs. We've assigned them to human characters as custodians for decades and change: Timmy Martin had Lassie, Emily Elizabeth had Clifford, and Rusty had Rin Tin Tin, a cherished chain of companionship built from specist preconceptions. Horror cinema is a dozen neighborhoods away from children's TV, westerns and storybooks, granted; still, the Emersons had Nanook, the Harrisons had Thor, and the Carter-Woods had Beauty and Beast.
Now, Todd (Shane Jensen), has Indy, the canine protagonist of Ben Leonberg's Good Boy, an excellent (and terrifying) film about one dog's efforts to save his human from demonic influence. Indy lives up to the movie's title; he's one of the best animal heroes horror cinema has been blessed with to date. Whether he likes it or not, he's also part of an abiding paw-paganda campaign promoting dogs' superiority as man's bestest friend. But horror cinema has a counterargument to this long-accepted animal evangelism, and that argument's name is General.
General is the cat referred to by the title of Lewis Teague's 1985 anthology movie Cat's Eye, a stray tabby cat on a journey to track down a girl he sees in a vision; she's in dire need of a guardian, and the cat, anonymous for the first two segments in the film until he finally arrives at his destination, is in need of a home and a child to cuddle with. His is a worthy mission. The girl, Amanda, played by a 10 year old Drew Barrymore, at the time an American treasure decades before she achieved godhood among America's wine moms, is at the mercy of a vicious, diminutive troll bent on snatching the breath right out of her. This is a threat General will not suffer as a kitty missing what all kitties need most: a winsome kiddo eager to dole out ear scratches and tummy rubs. For man's stereotyping of the feline set as misanthropic, cats are simple, easygoing creatures with a fondness for life's simple pleasures.
But Cat's Eye characterizes General as more noble, less Garfield; he puts up with a lot of side quests on his way to Amanda's rescue. The first segment, "Quitters, Inc.," focuses on family man Dick (James Woods), in over his head with a mafia outfit that specializes in helping people drop bad habits, which is a bit like describing 9/11 as "demolition." In the second segment, "The Ledge," lovestruck Johnny (Robert Hays) is kidnapped by a mobster, Cressner (Kenneth McMillan), for the crime of having a fling with his wife, and blackmailed into shuffling along the ledge of his penthouse for his vengeful amusement. General plays a key part in both segments, intervening in Cressner's scheme in the latter and serving as a victim in the former. Nonetheless, they're stopovers on his itinerary. He answers a greater call.
Back in the 1980s, Barrymore, a Hollywood acting scion, had a handful of meaningful notches on her belt, most of all Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, a role that launched her toward the peaks of child movie stardom. (As if she wasn't famous enough to begin with.) She'd even guest-hosted Saturday Night Live by 1982. Contextualizing her fame in Cat's Eye gives General's mission a sort of meta-urgency: save Barrymore at all costs! It's the sort of stunt casting that prepackages empathy and stakes alongside an otherwise reasonable horror movie; the double-edged sword effect of her presence here is to throw "Quitters, Inc." and "The Ledge" under an impatient shadow. Get on with it already! We're waiting for Barrymore.
Maybe if either of General's minor misadventures had half the amount of juice as his own, that sensation would be allayed. Instead, they're merely "fine," which might be taken as a meta demonstration of clichéd ideas about cats' selective empathy; they care about what they care about, and you can miss them with the rest. By degrees, General is just a bystander in "Quitters, Inc." and "The Ledge." Naturally, he provides the driving force in his namesake segment, where he is adopted by Amanda and her reluctant parents, who indulge their daughter but impose harsh restrictions on General's room and board, even though it's well documented that indoor cats fare better than outdoor ones. He takes his banishment on the nose; it's an opportunity to score goodwill for himself and for all cats, everywhere, by breaking back into the house to repel the troll.
Amanda's parents don't appreciate the gesture at first. They think General is responsible for killing the family's pet bird. (Birds, by the way, make miserable pets; they follow a chaotic rule set. If cats can be jerks, they're at least predictable.) Little do they know. As with his outdoor confinement, General handles his punishment for the bird murder (or, bird-er) with dignity, and makes his way back to Amanda's house for showdown number two with the troll. It's this devotion to his ward that signifies General as the proto-Indy; no matter how hard Todd pushes him away in Good Boy, the pooch remains undeterred. (One might say he's dogged.) He won't let his person down. General abides by the same code: Amanda's safety is paramount, and no obstacle or amount of distance will prevent him from defending her.
To the ear, the plot of "General" drips with sap: a stray cat travels over hill and dale, like a knight in a storybook, charged with protecting a princess from a dragon, to stop an evil troll from stealing a helpless little girl's soul. As horror goes, the short lands somewhere in the range of "cheesy," but pins just enough of reality to excellent creature effects and atmosphere to stir pathos; anybody who's had to bury a family pet will find Barrymore's reaction to her bird's death genuinely heartbreaking. There's little that's quite as painful as witnessing a child's grief. On the other hand, there's nothing quite as joyful as seeing the bond between a child and an animal, to say nothing of the righteous thrill of General sending the troll to its maker while "Every Breath You Take" plays on the soundtrack; rest in pieces. Best of all, though, is that by the time Cat's Eye ends, the record has been corrected. Dogs may have the most role models for horror movie heroism. But thanks to General, cats have the best.
