‘Sorry, your party is dead…’
Eyes of a Stranger is a 1981 American slasher horror feature film directed by Ken Wiederhorn (Shock Waves; Return of the Living Dead Part II) from a screenplay by Mark Jackson and Eric L. Bloom. The Georgetown Productions movie stars Lauren Tewes, Jennifer Jason Leigh, John Disanti and Peter Dupré.
Review:
Bad things are happening in the city of Miami. There’s a serial killer on the loose. He’s chopping off heads and leaving bodies on the beach.
Local new anchorwoman Jane (Lauren Tewes) is particularly upset that there’s a killer roaming the streets of her hometown. She even talks about how upset she is during a local newscast, which takes everyone at the station by surprise. I don’t know why they’re so shocked. Don’t they know that Jane has a younger sister named Tracy (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and that Tracy’s been blind, deaf, and mute ever since she was attacked by a maniac?
One day, Jane is returning to the apartment that she shares with her sister. As she’s parking her car, she sees her neighbor, Stanley (John DiSanti), stuffing what appears to be a bloody shirt in a trash can. Oh my God, could he be the murderer!?
Well, yes, he is. The film actually makes no attempt to hide the fact that Stanley is the murderer. Stanley is one of those movie murderers who is either hyper competent or totally oblivious, depending on what the scene demands. For instance, despite being a rather heavyset, middle-aged man, he can still sneak up behind people without them ever hearing and chop off their head with one wave of a meat cleaver. On the other hand, when he kills a couple on the beach, his car ends up getting stuck in the sand.
Anyway, Jane is pretty much instantly convinced that Stanley is the killer and she immediately starts doing stuff like taunting him over the telephone. (Despite the fact that she’s on TV every night and her voice is apparently heard by everyone in Miami, she makes no effort to disguise her voice whenever she calls Stanley.) She also breaks into his apartment to look for clues.
As I watched this film, I found myself thinking about how much more interesting it would have been if Stanley hadn’t been the killer and if Jane felt so guilty about what happened to her sister that she ended up harassing a totally innocent bystander. But no, Stanley is the murderer so naturally all of this leads to an extended sequence where Stanley breaks into and then follows Tracy around Jane’s apartment.
So, Eyes of a Stranger is a fairly mediocre film, one that would probably be totally forgotten if not for the fact that it’s also the debut film of Jennifer Jason Leigh. While the film is obviously meant to showcase Lauren Tewes (a TV actress who gives a rather wooden performance), Jennifer Jason Leigh steals every scene in which she appears. Her total commitment to her character shines through and she even manages to sell a rather implausible plot twist that occurs towards the end of the film.
John DiSanti also deserves some credit for his performance as Stanley. Again, it’s hard not to feel that the film would have worked better if it had tried to keep us guessing as to the question of Stanley’s guilt.
Eyes of a Stranger was directed by Ken Wiederhorn, who also helmed the far superior zombie movie, Shock Waves (which can be seen playing on TV in one scene). It’s interesting to note that both Lauren Tewes and Jennifer Jason Leigh would subsequently appear in Twin Peaks: The Return, though Leigh’s role was significantly larger.
Lisa Marie Bowman, HORRORPEDIA – guest reviewer via Through the Shattered Lens
Other reviews:
“There are a lot of clever ideas here, but most of them were done better in earlier movies… If not for the nudity and gore, this could have easily been a made for TV movie. True slasher fans will most likely find Eyes of a Stranger disappointingly tame. On the other hand, fans of older suspense/thrillers will find the gore overdone and the nudity gratuitous. It seems this movie was made to disappoint everyone.” Exclamation Mark
“There’s uses for a meat cleaver, a switchblade, and bare hands. In the uncut version, there are at least four notable deaths, bloody as can be. A singlehanded decapitation is fun, and flows all over Debbie’s apartment, where she will later find her boyfriend’s head in the fish tank. It seems Night School has a cousin.” Oh-the-Horror!
” … the script gives too much time to the psychopath and he doesn’t get characterised as well as say, in a movie like Maniac. There are no real shots of him behaving like a loon and instead we just see him sitting down to have his dinner and with all due respect to John DiSanti, he just doesn’t ooze scariness.” A Slash Above
“The film shuffles from one suspense-free scene to another – bathed in the pastel nihilistic look that typified many early 1980s genre flicks, the result of blistering Miami sunshine, cheap film stock and subsequent bad video transfer.” J.A. Kerswell, Teenage Wasteland: The Slasher Movie Uncut
Buy Teenage Wasteland from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com
Censorship:
The film was originally cut for an ‘R’-rating, removing many instances of violence including a decapitation, leaving only the final head shot uncut. As a result many of Tom Savini‘s gore effects were removed or censored. The uncut version has since been released in Warner’s Twisted Terror Collection on DVD with an ‘R’ on the packaging.
Cast and characters:
- Lauren Tewes … Jane
- Jennifer Jason Leigh … Tracy
- John DiSanti … Stanley Herbert
- Peter DuPre … David
- Gwen Lewis … Debbie
- Kitty Lunn … Annette
- Timothy Hawkins … Jeff
- Ted Richert … Roger England
- Toni Crabtree … Mona
- Robert Small [as Bob Small]… Doctor Bob
- Stella Rivera … Dancer
- Dan Fitzgerald … Bartender
- Jose Bahamonde … Jimmy
- Luke Halpin … Tape Editor
- Ru Flynn [as Rhonda Flynn] … Woman in Car
Filming locations:
Miami, Florida, USA
Trivia:
At the movie theater there is a poster for Dawn of the Dead (1978) for which Tom Savini also created special makeup-effects.
Buy Eyes of a Stranger uncut + Dr. Giggles + Deadly Friend + The Hand + Someone’s Watching Me + From Beyond the Grave on DVD from Amazon.com
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