As the creature expires, its pet, an orange tiger cat, watches and lets out a small mew of mourning. The flirtation between Smith and Fiorentino looks as if it's going somewhere after she tells him he has beautiful eyes, but it gets left by the wayside. And I'm not willing to chalk that up to bad plot construction. There's a famous story of how, in 1968, General Motors freaked out when Petula Clark touched Harry Belafonte's arm on a Christmas show the corporation was sponsoring. The studios aren't quite that nuts, but considering that it's 30 years later, they're close.
Genre films are full of routine love interest.
Charles Taylor is regular contributor to Salon. He lives in Boston.