Hollywood Gothique
The Vault

Scaredy Cats: The Eye 10

It’s Saturday – time for Cat Blogging! This week, we have our eyes on the kitty cameo in THE EYE 10, the second sequel to 2002’s THE EYE (the source of the current remake, which opened nationwide on Friday).

Unlike the original EYE and its first sequel THE EYE 2, which focused on lone female protagonists who unwittingly gained the power to see the dead, THE EYE 10 (also known as “The Eye: Infinity”) involves a group of young friends who deliberately strive to make contact with the spirit world, just for kicks. To do this, the utilize the “Ten Encounters,” ten methods for viewing the dead, listed in an occult book that one of them conveniently purchased years ago. (It is from the Ten Encounters that THE EYE 10 takes its title, in case you were wondering what happened to THE EYE 3 through 9.)

The first two encounters (seeing through the eyes of the dead, attempting suicide while pregnant) were used in the first two films, leaving eight methods for this film to explore in episodic fashion. Sequences are devoted to a Spirit Glass (which spells out messages in the fahion of a Ouja Board) and tapping bowls (to summon hungry spirits). And one of the methods involves a black cat!


A black cat is used in a midnight came of hide-and-seek.

This method involves playing a game of hide-and-seek in a lonely woods at midnight. The idea is that eventually an invisible ghost will cloak one of the players, preventing the others from finding him. This is where the cat comes into play: upon being released, the cat will sense the ghost and the player it is hiding; its presence revealed, the ghost will become visible to the humans.

Unfortunately, the game does not go as planned. After one of their friends disappears, the cat is released, leading toward a ghost. However, before the ghost can be revealed, the cat dies in some unexplained fashion. Presumably it was killed by one of the spirits (who are more deliberately menacing in this film), but if so, it is just about the only example any of the films presents of a ghost able to inflict physical damage upon a living body. (And if this is indeed what happens, one wonders how the hide-and-seek Encounter could ever work.)

The upshot is that the missing friend remains missing, and the remainder of the film shits from an episodic series of encounters to a search. The remaining methods are utilized in the hope of revealing his whereabouts. The final method involves dressing in funeral clothes and going into a trance to enter the spirit world. Here, not only is the missing friend discovered; we also see another glimpse of the cat.


The cat is glimpsed again – albeit unclearly – in the afterlife.

The shadowy stylings of the land of the dead make the image difficult to see clearly, but we have no doubt this is the same feline that sought to reveal the concealing ghost during the hide-and-seek game. It’s sad the little critter had to die, but we take some consolation in see that it has become a beloved pet in the afterlife.