Terror Eyes

If you want to see something different for a change (instead of your average psycho-killer, haunted house, monster movie, etc.) then rent Terror Eyes. The movie just has so many plot twists and stories in itself. It changes from horror to a suspense to some Twilight Zone episode. It is weird and many probably won't appreciate it like I do. But this movie was just something originally different for a change. You'd think lots of more famous movies of today might of copied off it hoping that no one saw it such as Jumanji, The Never-Ending Story, Run Lola Run, Cube, etc. That just shows what a variety of genres you get from this surprisingly good (and many times confusing) horror flick. Unfortunately it is very unpopular and I'm sure many videostores don't carry it. It depends on your taste, but I definitely think this movie is worth watching. I gave it a 6. The acting's not that bad and (for the time-period it was made in, of course) the effects aren't that bad. The box throws you off and summaries about it in movie-books and other internet sites do also so don't be fooled. This movie has a little bit of everything in it even if it is a little cheesy.

You can do worse for a very obscure little home video era horror thriller with zero boobs or beheadings. Not quite a horror anthology in the traditional sense of the word, which is why I sought it out. More sort of an extended series of loosely connected psychological thriller sections, connected by the common thread that they all feature the same actors. First up is a nifty one-set take on the "Devil's Gift" premise of an unwanted acquisition you can't seem to get rid of. I liked how ordinary it looked. Second is a bizarre version of "Groundhog Day" with a misfit two-bit loser finding himself stuck in a causality loop of greed and murder. Last segment is the most interesting with a demented twist on "Tron" with an anti-gaming violence crusader running for her life in a human sized rat maze.

Most was shot on film, the final segment on video equipment and the blend of the two mediums makes an interesting concoction. The wrap-around segment of a ditzy writer attempting to write a horror movie isn't very involving and Daniel Roebuck's presence in the film is puzzling ... Maybe he went to high school with one of the producers? He is sort of in the Peter Cushing role, the screen presence who out-acts everyone just by sitting up in his chair and looking involved. There's some decent squibbage and a melted head but no real splatter and fans of exploitation may be disappointed by how respectful the film is towards its female cast members.

For that matter the "rat maze" sequence is itself a little bit of commentary on the over-hyped nature of pop culture, it's inherent admiration of violence and misogyny, and how we all get caught up in the frenzy of consuming it every now and then. Kind of interesting to see it in the wake of the Aurora Batman massacre & reflect upon how the pop culture represented in such films found a horrifying real-world form in its barbarity. Not to minimize the event but to point out that a popular culture eventually starts breeding gross parodic versions of itself to mimic those forms which it celebrates. Sick minds latch onto base whims partly on suggestion, which means only that the madness of film violence & its de-sensitizing effect on already disturbed minds can lead to genuine chaos. Like nobody knew that already, and whoever crafted the sequence had to have an intimate familiarity with late 80s arcade gaming to have skewered it so effectively.

Commentary aside that one sequence is maybe worth the effort of seeking out this understandably obscure film for lovers of low budget regionally produced horror films. One segment finds a participant getting high scores in a video game based on the number of rapes & kills he had committed, and a genuine belly laugh awaits those who get to watch the Pac Man doggie chase it's victim. Pretty interesting stuff! the banal locations, non-acting and pert screen presence of sexy Vivian Schilling amounting to more than the sum of its parts. Just don't go in expecting disembowelings or female exterior anatomy lessons and this will give it up for you. Kept the attention of two very jaded horror film buffs who have seen "Header", and were drinking beer.

6/10

Now I know that the eighties spawned a nearly immeasurable amount of dumb and low-budgeted horror movies, and that it's practically impossible to have seen them all, but still I'm somewhat surprised that this particular one never caught my attention before. I'm a tremendous fan of the genre, the decade and particularly anthologies, and the list of '80s anthologies isn't that enormous after all. Considering the fact that I've struggled myself through some truly bad ones that are less obscure, like for example "Shock Chamber", I had very little hopes that this "Terror Eyes" would be worth checking out, but my second pleasant surprise was that I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. "Terror Eyes" is an incredibly cheap and amateurish, but the lack of professionalism is widely compensated by the spirited acting performances, the ingenious wraparound story and – most of all – the astoundingly clever short stories. The segments are curious and compelling, all three of them, and I certainly didn't expect that they would also be tense and well-scripted. The wraparound story introduces a young female marketing executive who, strangely enough, is charged with writing a horror screenplay. She's inexperienced and frustrated about this, but she finds inspiration in her nightmares and around the campfire during a trip with her friends. At some point during the camping trip the lead actress' boyfriend even gets possessed by a sort of rancid demon, but even that bizarre plot twist results in a couple of funny moments. The first story, which is definitely my favorite one, introduces the marginal couple Troy and Starla Floyd. They are offered a book by a strange door-to-door salesman and discover that it very accurately describes every move they make and every word they say; even stuff that hasn't occurred yet. The second story deals with the difficult themes like time loops and altering history, but the narration is light-headed and unpretentious and thus very easy to follow. In order to pay off his debt, a loser gambler is sent to rob the house of the creditor, allegedly so that he can recover the insurance money. Once there he witnesses the murder of his creditor's wife, but when he flees he ends up in the exact same place and the exact same time as the day before. As he's reliving the same experience multiple times, he discovers who the murderer is and why. The third and final story revolves on Alex Bender, as she just the world's first female champion chess player. Alex also happens to be a truly devoted and feminist opponent against violence towards women in video games and grabs every opportunity to criticize the famous Rubinstein Game Corporation and its CEO on national television. After another fierce press interview she gets kidnapped and ends up in the mansion of the deranged CEO – Martin Rubinstein. Alex now becomes the lead character in a very vivid violent game herself, and the price of defeat is death… I can't emphasize enough how deeply I'm impressed by the originality and the freshness of the little stories featuring in "Terror Eyes". That alone makes it easier for me to overlook the poor technical aspects and micro-budgeted production values. Most of the actors/actresses appear in various roles and clearly enjoy themselves a lot. One of the actresses, Vivian Schilling even co-wrote the better-than-expected screenplay. Talk about multitasking!

This a great movie. It is very scary. It is one of the scariest movie. I have seen. See it. It is not a 4 out 10. It is a It a 7 out 10. It is a very scary movie. A lot better then The silence of the lambs. A lot better then Saw. Also a lot then the 2010 remake of Nightmare on elm street.

My review was written in January 1989 after watching the feature on AIP video cassette.

"Terror Eyes" is an uneven video program incorporating a slight premise (writers' strike impact on horror film production) with a couple of student films for ballast.

Vivian Schilling is the project's mastermind, portraying a budding screenwriter summoned by the devil' envoy (hammy Daniel Roebuck) to pen a horror script during last year's WGA strike. She also doubles as star opposite Lance August in a very chintzy opening segment wherein they're a young couple handed a Book of Life which disconcertingly tells them their future.

Best segment is the finale, a shot-on-videotrape (rest of pic is filmed) episode reminiscent of the classic "Epic" segment of the British tv series "The Avengers", wherein evil toy magnate Phil Lowey torments femme chess champion Diana James with a real-life violent game to the death, after she bad mouths his videogames to the press. USC student tape (with classic helmer Edward Dmytryk as faculty adviser by Michael Rissi shows promise.

Middle segment, another short film by Steve Sommers, is a hopelessly padded attempt at film noir with Dan Bell as the fall guy in a robbery and murder scheme.

Ramshackle structure fails to knit these disparate materials together and mixture of film and video doesn't come off. Makeup effects stress gore for its own sake.