Eyes without a Face on DVD (1960)

Don't believe the hype

Sam Lowry from Skylight City, Brazil [Highly rated reviewer] , 16/07/2008

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.

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Les Yeux sans visage

TheUncanny from HALESOWEN [Highly rated reviewer] , 13/06/2008

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.

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Eyes without a face

A customer from Bath , 25/06/2008

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!

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Dated Badly

Toxfly from West Malling , 27/07/2008

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.

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Les Yeux sans visage

TheUncanny from HALESOWEN [Highly rated reviewer] , 13/06/2008

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.

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Face off - the prequel

itstinks , 07/07/2008

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.

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