Killing Eyes

My review was written in December 1987 after watching the film on Republic video cassette.

"If Looks Could Kill" represents a departure for filmmaker Chuck Vincent, entering the thriller genre after specializing in comedies and dramas. Like his subsequent horror piece "Deranged", pic is interesting mainly for its structure. It debuted domestically via home video.

Using a claustrophobic technique drawing upon Hitchcock's "Rear Window" as its model, pic details the travails of the aptly named George Ringer (Tim Gail), a young man who videotapes parties and bar mitzvahs until shady lawyer Jac Devonoff (Jamie Gillis) hires him to set up a surveillance camera on the apartment of suspected embezzler Laura Williamson (played by Kim Lambert, better know as Sheri St. Claire and previously billed as Kim Kafkaloff).

Ringer becomes obsessed with this job, peeping at the beautiful woman while recording evidence of her shady doings with her love slave Carson (James Davies), a bank employee. Ringer's girlfriend Jeannie (Jeanne Marie) gets fed up with his neglect and splits, but things really go awry when Ringer finds out Devonoff is a fake and he is being set up as the fall guy in an embezzlement/murder plot. Pic concludes with several effective plot twists but a disappointing chase and police shootout.

Pic's main surprise is an effective turn by Sheri St. Claire as the mystery woman, in a role which combines some dramatic opportunities with uninhibited (within the confines of an R rating) sexuality, drawing upon St. Claire's extensive experience in Adult films. Also doing well as the villain is the ubiquitous Adult film performer Jamie Gillis (billed here as J. Gillis). Leads Tim Gail and Jeanne Marie are overshadowed by the supporting cast.

Despite hearing nothing but bad things about it, I actually went into If Looks Could Kill with some expectations as I really liked the sound of the plot description. In terms of entertainment value, I often find that you cant go wrong with a trashy thriller; but this one is shabbily made even by genre standards and even more unforgivable than that is the fact that it's really rather boring. The plot should have given the film a great base for an entertaining thrill ride and focuses on a photographer who is asked to film a woman. Naturally, this seedy request turns out to be a bit less than kosher and soon the photographer discovers that he's been set up to take a murder wrap when the girl's dead body turns up. The film does have a gritty and seedy atmosphere which is to its credit as it helps the fetid atmosphere but the film is not a fun watch owing to the fact that the plot isn't made best use of and it's really rather ugly. Director Chuck Vincent's filmography is mostly made up of porn titles so it's not really surprising that If Looks Could Kill is unprofessionally done. This film is very obscure and hard to find and I'm sure that it will stay that way as there's no real need to track it down. Feel free to skip this one!

This wretched attempt at filmmaking features Tim Gail, in his first and last credited role, as George Ringer, a youthful photographer of such fare as weddings, who is commissioned by a bank attorney, Jack Devonoff (Jamie Gillis), to videotape a woman while she is inside of her apartment in order to build an embezzlement case against her. Handsomely paid and supplied with a filming site - an apartment across from that of his subject, Ringer immediately determines that he has double trouble: (a.) from viewing events that are more knotted than he had expected; (b.) from his live-in girlfriend, unhappy due to an increased amount of time being spent away from her. Witnessing a murder is more than Ringer has anticipated, but when he attempts to pull out from his employment, his future appears to be laden with difficulties that he is not prepared to face. Director Chuck Vincent, screenwriter Craig Horral, and most of the principal cast members apparently have, as cinematic backgrounds, experience only in pornographic film production, or, as it seemingly must be labelled: the "adult film industry". Plainly as a result, no difficulty presents itself for various females of the cast in the matter of removing their clothing, which they do with alacrity, and with none of those silly old undergarments with which to deal. It is ostensibly very much more challenging for the director, scriptor, and crew to structure a film that makes sense and is visually interesting, as test patterns would have greater artistic interest and entertainment value. The work unaccountably becomes, during an interminable climax, a horror movie, with gore generously included, yet even this can not expunge from the viewer's sensibilities the completely inane dialogue and lamentable acting which antecede the foolish ending.

This is Chuck Vincent's soft core remake of his rather remarkable adult XXX thriller "Voyeur" of 1985. The original version was better: More concise, more suspenseful, and the sex action was quick and memorable. Why Vincent felt the need to make a watered-down soft core version of it we'll never know.