Eyes of a Stranger

It's not bad at all but it has some flaws. What killer leaves his muddy shoes in the closet to be found there by a lady who's living in the same building? Only a stupid killer. What killer throw a shirt dirty with blood in the garbage bin from the garage at the base of the block where he lives? The same stupid killer. But they're all stupid, the killers, since they commit crimes. I wanted to watch this because of Jennifer Jason Leigh. But she has a small role of a deaf-mute almost blind. She's very young, one of her first roles. OK, let's accept that she has a very strong shock, being almost raped by the killer-psychopath and that helps returning her sight and speech. The interesting idea of the movie is the killer watched by the neighbor, tortured by phone, as he watched and tortured his victims. Lauren Tewes looks like Agnetha Fältskog, the blonde of ABBA, and John DiSanti, the killer, looks like Rod Steiger. They are both very good, specially DiSanti.

Surprisingly decent entry in the slasher-flick genre has attractive, spunky Lauren Tewes (here on loan from TV's "The Love Boat", and doing excellent work besides) playing crack reporter hunting down a serial killer of women. Jennifer Jason Leigh, with her thick crop of hair and pale skin, is luminous in her film-debut as Tewes' deaf-mute-and-blind sister (her sequence in the kitchen with the killer is incredibly well-staged). The movie's first priority is to be a bloodfest, and some of the violence is predictably disgusting; however, of its type, "Eyes" isn't half bad! I found the grainy production quite eerie, John DiSanti gives a brave performance as the hefty psycho, and, as noted, Tewes is terrific. Who knew?? ** from ****

Set in Miami, Florida, the film follows Jane (Lauren Tewes) a TV news reporter who covers the murders of a serial murderer/rapist. Jane lives with her sister, Tracy (Jennifer Jason Leigh in her first film role), who after an encounter with an abductor as a child renders her blind, deaf and mute leaving Jane with survivor's guilt. Jane sees suspicious behavior from a neighbor in the adjacent apartment block, Stanley Herbert (John DiSanti), and suspects he may be the killer. Jane's suspicions are confirmed and Jane uses her skills and resources to turn the tables on the killer.

Released in 1981, Eyes of a Stranger marked director Ken Wiederhorn's third feature film following the cult zombie film Shock Waves and forgotten Animal House rip-off King Frat. The film was unique among most slasher films having come from a major studio, Warner Brothers, and forgoing the isolated country sides or suburban settings that defined the ambiance of Friday the 13th, Halloween, and the subsequent films they inspired and went for a more urban environment. Eyes of a Stranger doesn't follow the typical slasher formula wherein we focus on a group as slowly one by one the characters are killed in various fashions, but instead the movie is told from the point of view of Jane as she investigates her suspicions in an almost Noir-ish approach to the material there's a decent story idea at the core of Eyes of a Stranger, but it feels like it's rather unsure of itself as it wavers between traditional thriller tropes and slasher tropes with both ends feeling rather underdeveloped.

I think the biggest mistake the movie makes is in letting us the audience know that Stanley Herbert is a killer from the get go. While initially Stanley's face is obscured in shadow or off camera during the initial kills, the movie eventually drops this and it's made clear he is the killer. The fact we already know who the killer is robs much of Jane's investigative story of its tension as conversations with her lawyer boyfriend where they debate whether he is the killer feel pointless since we already know Jane is right and it's just the movie spinning its wheels until the inevitable climax. The kills are very much inspired by slasher trends and the gore work (in the uncut version I saw) by Tom Savini is par for the course well done and carries weight and impact, but we know so little about the people being killed because they're not main characters and you feel nothing when they die because there's no investment. It's not to say that this kind of framework can't work as there's been a number of Giallo films from the likes of Mario Bava or Dario Argento that cover material in this fashion, but those films usually try to have a sense of moral ambiguity to them with time taken to establish intrigue or character. We do get an idea of the impetus as to what motivates Jane's plan against Stanley, but it isn't all that fleshed out and feels like a footnote. Stanley himself isn't all that interesting and basically plays a standard quiet loner but even with that we don't get much of an idea as to who Stanley is outside his kills. His apartment is spotless and bland with only a Cuckoo clock that serves as a plot point standing out and we have no idea what he's like outside of the killings so he's basically just a murder machine for Jane to fight against.

Eyes of a Stranger is technically superior and has a more interesting story core than most of its contemporaries of the 1980s Slasher Glut, but it doesn't fully commit to being a thriller or a slasher and wobbles un easily between the two not really satisfying the standards for one or the other. The movie does have an intriguing noir-ish style that made the film more visually interesting in comparison to other films of similar ilk and the effects work by Savini is good as usual, but at the end it feels a hodgepodge of ideas from Rear Window, Wait Until Dark, and Peeping Tom with some contemporary gore work added that doesn't give the film much of its own identity. It's serviceable, but I can't give it much more than that.

EYES OF A STRANGER is far better than one might expect. LOVE BOAT's Lauren Tewes is quite good as Jane Harris, the TV anchor turned Nancy Drew sleuth. Jennifer Jason Leigh is very convincing as Harris' blind, traumatized sister, Tracy. They have no idea that they're living in the apartment building right next to that of a repugnant serial-rapist / murderer. The very killer that Jane has been reporting on every night!

As fate would have it, Jane stumbles upon evidence that could point to the man's identity. We're shown early on that she's right, and said maniac gets wise to her snooping. He's a pretty intimidating person, played well by John DiSanti.

This movie is a solid thriller with a surprisingly high gore quotient provided by maestro Tom Savini. The "fish tank" scene is most memorable. The rest is mostly by the numbers, with the real exception being the effort put in by Ms.' Tewes and Jason Leigh...

"Eyes of a Stranger" is a decent, overlooked slasher that takes place in sunny Miami. A depraved sex murderer is hard at work eliminating the female population, and a hard- driving TV news anchor, Jane Harris (Lauren Tewes of 'The Love Boat' fame) is determined to do something about it, especially when she comes to believe that the killer is actually one of her own neighbours, the bespectacled, corpulent Stanley Herbert (John DiSanti). He's been phoning his victims as a prelude to his crimes, but he soon has the tables turned on him as *she* harasses him with calls. But Stanley soon has another victim in mind, Janes' own sister Tracy (Jennifer Jason Leigh, making her film debut), who's deaf, dumb, and blind because she's *already* had a traumatic past encounter with a predator.

Admittedly, this *is* trashy stuff, but should prove to be adequate entertainment for slasher aficionados. Not that it stands out in the genre in terms of style or content, because it doesn't, but it's still reasonably well done. Director Ken Wiederhorn establishes a respectably creepy atmosphere and gets some great use out of the various locations.

In one twist, Stanley dumps a victim at the beach, where he promptly gets his car stuck, and when an annoyed lovebird who happens to be nearby shows up to give the car a push, it provides Stanley with another handy two victims. An early scene is also amusing for containing a "severed head in the fishtank" gag, just as "He Knows You're Alone", another slasher from the same period, did. Late in the movie, there's one very sinister sequence when Stanley is in the Harris apartment and toys with Tracy by moving objects in and out of her reach.

Tom Savini supplies the makeup effects, which are good but for the most part not among his best work (the final blood soaked sequence is pretty nice, though). For the voyeurs, there are some choice breast shots. One very effective element is the excellent music score by the under-rated composer Richard Einhorn; it's quite scary. The acting is fine from the principals: Tewes is convincing as the impassioned older sister, Leigh is appealing as the younger one, DiSanti is incredibly effective as the murdering cretin, and Peter DuPre does a decent job as Janes' attorney boyfriend. Look for 'Flipper' star Luke Halpin in a bit as a tape editor, and watch out for scenes from Wiederhorns' spooky low budget flick "Shock Waves" (which had co-starred Halpin) playing on TV.

This was one of only three productions for the short lived company Georgetown, whose other credits were the first two "Friday the 13th" pictures.

Seven out of 10.