Hacker Cinema
Cat's Eye
1985 · Film · 94 min
Directed by Lewis Teague
Three short stories linked by a stray cat that roams from one tale to the next, in this creepy triptych that begins as Dick tries to quit smoking by any means necessary. Next, we meet Johnny, an adulterous man who's forced by his lover's husband onto a building's hazardous ledge. Finally, Amanda is threatened by an evil gnome who throws suspicion on the family cat.
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I recall a Twilight Zone movie "Cat's Eye" and a sketch from that including James Woods called "Dying For a Smoke". The premise is a man wants to quit smoking so he goes to a firm called Quitters Inc. where he signs a contract. If they catch him smoking they will escalate the punishments against him. After a few relatively tame punishments for sneaking a cigarette, he gets caught smoking again and so they kidnap his wife and daughter. They force him to watch as the company tortures his family and then they insinuate even worse fates for his family if they catch him smoking again.
The sketch from the mentioned movie is a dark satire. It lampoons the kind of pseudo-logical thinking which simplifies problems by externalizing responsibility for our actions to external entities. Yet it is only when that external entity reflects the consequences of our action back on us that there is a chance we alter our behavior. However, once externalized we lose control of the process and in some sense become a slave to it.
I feel that dystopian sketch is a satire directly aimed at this kind of application.