Eyes without a Face Reviews

[Highly rated reviewer]

Don't believe the hype

Maybe the story is interesting and some moments are quite good, but let's not get carried away here. This film moves at a glacial pace, and as it's less than 90 mins that means very little happens. Endless shots of nothing occuring makes it feel like a quota quickie. Cinematography is all over the place, cutaways don't match and lots of shots seem underexposed then rescued in grading, although that couldn't cure the continuity errors. Almost everybody is virtually monosyllabic. The ending made me laugh it was so poorly acted and even the animals couldn't be coaxed into doing was was required of them. We are talking a B movie run at half speed here, if this was in English it would rightfully be panned.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Les Yeux sans visage

Georges Franju’s seminal 1959 French horror film Les Yeux sans visage (Eyes Without a Face) balances the subtly poetic with the deliberately graphic. Franju, ably aided by Eugen Schüfftan’s expressionistic photography, exerts tight control over shot composition and mise-en-scène to expertly build tension and create a haunting fairy tale atmosphere.

To a modern audience the most surprising aspect of this under appreciated classic is how influential it was on the horror cinema which came later. Of particular note is the Doctor’s daughter, the doll-like Christiane (superbly played by Edith Scob) who is at once the sympathetic heart of the narrative and yet – through her unsettling, stilted movement (reminiscent of the monstrous Sadako in Nakata’s Ringu) and her blank face mask (a clear source of influence on Michael Myers in John Carpenter’s Halloween) – she is also a disconcerting, almost menacing, screen presence.

Whilst confronting the viewer with scenes of surprising violence for the time (in particular one operation scene made even this hardened viewer squirm), it is the dream-like sequences which stay with you: a passing aeroplane interrupts a ghoulish mission, white doves accompany a girl into a night-time forest.

Haunting and highly recommended.

Dated Badly

I can see how this film would have shocked in 1960, but like most horror films, it has dated very badly. In particular the long sequences of walking up stairs and parking the car (which in the extras is built up into some clever bit of filmmaking) far from building up tension, draw all tension out of the film. There are some odd good moments but this is a film being hyped up by people who haven't watched it in years.

Eyes without a face

Black and white French classic which has inspired so many later film makers. Watch it on a cold winters night with the curtains drawn, a raging fire and a glass of Pinot!

A quirky little gem

I really have to disagree with what some of the other reviewers say about this film. I've always found it to be highly original and intriguing and therefore very much worth a look. Certainly don't bother if you want something fast paced as it does move pretty slowly, but if you like your films subtle and full of interesting imagery then it is highly recommended.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Benchmark setting

Most horror films and some normal films have a lot to thank for this French film noir. Watching it you can point your finger at moments that have been either directly ripped off or discreetly ripped off.

The films content is of such a dark nature the black and white of the picture seems colourful.

It starts with a women driving a dead body to a river to dump any evidence there is of it, it then comes to light that the body was in fact the daughter of a medical professor, or was it? you eventually find out he is trying to perform face transplants for his daughter who was horrically scarred from a car crash caused by the professor, the bodies being dumped are actually random girls taken off the street and their faces used for the transplant, but the doctor has told authorities that his daughter has been missing for a while, so a corpse of a young lady floating in a river with NO FACE!! is ideal for the doctor to fake his daughters death.

I noticed from the first few minutes that the film didn't mind discussing the nature of the body found with quite graphic detail, not a million miles away of the dialogue you might hear on the silence of the lambs. It was then the eerie setting of buildings and rooms that also set a tone that is far more affective than the crap we get in horrors these days.

The movie runs for 1 hour 26 mins and not many words are spoken, it relies heavily on visual impact, the film also has only one soundtrack, an out of context fairground kind of music that actually suits the nature of the film.

The film supposedly caused quite a stir in 1960 and i believe it would have been a lot to do with an operating scene which shows, with fairly good detail the professor perfoming a face transplant. Again so much more affective than todays horrors.

I strongly reccommend this film to anybody with a decent imagination and apart from a slight 20 mins lull nearing the end of the film it would have been 5 stars all the way.

Close your eyes...

Been looking forward to seeing this film for some time as it's regularly cited as one of the best horror films ever made, and boy it doesn't disappoint! Hard to believe it was made in 1959 (preceeding masterpieces like Psycho), I would describe the film a bit like Hitchcock on drugs! Surreal, devastatingly relentless and truly chilling, Eyes Without a Face takes you to some really nasty places and will stay with you for a long time to come.

[Highly rated reviewer]

umm

the films cover photo explains it all

Eyes Without A Face

Some startling imagery, particularly at the end of the film, but despite its high reputation I found it heavy-going and at times hard to get into. The middle sections particularly seemed to drag - and it does contain some of the most stupid policemen of all time.

Despite all this, I would recommend it for the opening and closing sections alone, and for any horror fan it is probably a classic they shouldn't miss out on.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Face off - the prequel

A gothic horror which has had various variations of the skilled surgeon willing to sacrifice nubile girls to recover the face of his daughter which was badly injured in an accident. However, the film is very skillfully done and there is a menace just from otherwise non-descript scenes such as a car parking. The surgery scenes look highly realistic so that you can get caught up in the true horror of what is being done but the ending could have been better.