I’ve totally forgotten Eyes of a Stranger existed, until a few weeks ago when it came to me in a flash of ungodly enlightenment. Maybe it’s because it has lived a more low-key life compared to the other slasher films from those magical years of slicing and dicing. And with gory special effects by Tom Savini! How could it happen? I think its because it belongs to those slasher films masked as normal, mainstream thrillers. There’s a few and I’m too lazy to name them, but Eyes of a Strange not only sports a stylish but unimaginative title and a story that fits on the backside of your mother’s dick, it’s also a damn fine and very atmospheric production - a child of its time, with one foot in the traditional b-movie/TV-film swamp and the other stuck in the sleazy, wannabe-slasher hell.
A serial sex killer is roaming the night and one woman after another is killed and sexually abused - probably in that order - and the police have no fucking idea what to do. Jane (Lauren Tewes), a local news reporter, suspects her neighbor, Stanley (John DiSanti, in a very Raymond Burr in Rear Window-esque performance) to be the killer and starts to gather evidence for this. One twist to it all is that Jane have a blind sister, Tracy (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who also gets into danger when Stanley moves closer into who’s stalking him!
Eyes of a Stranger is a small and cheap thriller, very much like a TV-movie. The production set out to make a traditional thriller from the beginning, but when they noticed how other slasher movies around them became gorier and more graphic, they added more gore and blood - which makes it an oddity. Not a bad one either, but hardly original. Wiederhorn could probably made it even more Hitchcockian than it already is, but wisely stays away from remaking Rear Window with a serial killer before its too late. But somehow it feels that was the intention with the film from the beginning. DiSanti is actually quite similar to Burr and he also lives opposite the protagonist who starts her own investigation. James Stewart was a photographer with a broken leg, Lauren Tewes is a reporter with a blind sister - it’s actually more or less the same.
The biggest difference from Rear Window is of course that Eyes of a Stranger delivers a lot of sleaze and violence. Tom Savini uses a lot of old tricks, you can easily recognize them from Dawn of the Dead (a poster that’s also visible in the film), Friday the 13th and hell, even Nightmares - he movie he says he wasn’t involved in. There’s a fun decapitation, some bloody stabbing and slashers, squibs and stuff that makes the heart of a genre fan to beat a little bit extra.
Ken Wiederhorn gives us a fun film with a few shocks and splashes of blood. It’s surprisingly effective considering it’s obscurity and tameness when it comes to the actual story that leads us from one murder to the next, but me - as a fan of cheap living room thrillers - loved every second of it. I mean, it’s +30 degrees celsius outside and I choose to sit inside and watch this film instead - gotta mean something!
"Maybe it’s because it has lived a more low-key life compared to the other slasher films from those magical years of slicing and dicing."
Never heard of it...I think.
"And with gory special effects by Tom Savini! How could it happen? I think its because it belongs to those slasher films masked as normal, mainstream thrillers."
Effects by Savini...?
Perfect for a slasher.....
"and a story that fits on the backside of your mother’s dick,"
Say what....?
"Eyes of a Stranger is a small and cheap thriller, very much like a TV-movie. The production set out to make a traditional thriller from the beginning, but when they noticed how other slasher movies around them became gorier and more graphic, they added more gore and blood - which makes it an oddity. Not a bad one either, but hardly original. Wiederhorn could probably made it even more Hitchcockian than it already is, but wisely stays away from remaking Rear Window with a serial killer before its too late."
But not a bad film to imitate, and added gore must be a nice element to the film.
"The biggest difference from Rear Window is of course that Eyes of a Stranger delivers a lot of sleaze and violence."
Hell yeah.....
"Ken Wiederhorn gives us a fun film with a few shocks and splashes of blood. It’s surprisingly effective considering it’s obscurity and tameness when it comes to the actual story that leads us from one murder to the next, but me - as a fan of cheap living room thrillers - loved every second of it. I mean, it’s +30 degrees celsius outside and I choose to sit inside and watch this film instead - gotta mean something!"
It does sound fun.....good review and thanks.
I have spent too much time in the sun myself......need to get back to comforting flicker of TV-screen.......hahahhahahhahhahahhhha
Posted by: Megatron | May 25, 2014 at 03:52