Terror Eyes

A young woman is hired by Satan to write a movie script for a horror movie.She and the group of her friends go camping and tell cheesy horror stories which we the viewers are about to witness.The last story which involves unlucky female chess master and labyrinth of traps becomes my instant favourite as it predates concepts used in "Cube" and "Saw"."Terror Eyes" by Eric Parkinson and Michael Rissi is pure 80's cheese.Vivian Schilling's presence is incredibly sexy,the acting is fairly decent and there are some great one-liners.There is no nudity and only a little bit of violence,so fans of more exploitative horror will be disappointed.If you are deeply into 80's horror "Terror Eyes" is a perfect way to kill some time.7 horror stories out of 10.

As its on-screen caption 'HOLLYWOOD Writer's Strike. No More Movies...No More Horror! What's the Devil to do?' began, I found myself asking "What the Devil is this? This isn't the 1980 Rachel Ward movie I was searching for!"

Film opens with distorted, point-of-view shots of Hollywood Blvd, weird blue- and red- lighted smoke, soft focus; bleached-out, or just underexposed? Or was the lighting intentionally too hot, and for what reason? (That's the second film I've watched recently with this problem. The first was the non-James Cameron 'Terminator 2', from Italy)

Once guy and girl set fire to something called The Book Of Life, the smoke effects begin, the disgusting fire effects begin, and the film becomes very weird, as it is explained away as being merely a dream, from which the girl (Vivian Schilling) wakes up from and writes down, convinced it will make a good horror movie. Apparently, Schilling's character is a horror film screenwriter, and the first half hour of this student film is vignettes dreamt by her, and typed later for use as potential ideas for new horror films. A disembodied hand punches through the door of her office, then rips the door off its hinges to get to her- but it's all just another one of her dreams.

She and her friends go camping and tell each other weird stories, which she also thinks will make great material for the horror movie she's writing. Here is where the film becomes slow moving and plodding, with the typical grotesque 80s clothes only serving to annoy.

Chick's chase through checkerboard hallway mazes while being followed by a rabid dog is surreal and eerie; but its effect negated by dated computer graphics, and bizarrely out-of-place ragtime piano music, as she suddenly appears in an old west ghost town.

A twist says that the entire film is the work of Satan, telling tales around a campfire to Schilling and the rest of her friends. Schilling then wakes up, turns these events into a screenplay, and becomes a filmmaker with a huge hit from it, in a supremely bewildering ending.

"Student Produced at USC", this has a few interesting ideas and camera shots, but painfully slow pacing, and not much action for a horror flick. It would have worked better as a 30-minutes long short film.

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

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.

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.