Saturday, March 22, 2014

The Killer Eye: Terror Vision


EYE’LL BE SEEING YOU

Jean Paul Gaultier sent over his sketches for my Sink For Your Supper gown. It's white with ice blue highlights and should flow and blend in with the iceberg set piece from which I'll do most of my singing. The gown has masses of tulle, a train and a nice, form fitting bodice but I do not completely understand all the white leather riveted straps that seem to hang off of it in various places. I assume it's some sort of modern statement. In keeping with the theme, the whole ensemble is topped off with the traditional white sailor hat. I should be unforgettable.

Norman seems to have aroused himself from his semi-comatose status of the last several days. His time on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune seems to have tuckered him out. He's still a bit angry as he lost to Bianca Jagger whom he considers very much an arriviste on the celebrity scene. He and his agent have been conferring on new properties and he his very hot on a new adaptation of The Confessions of Saint Augustine , in which he would play the hero's father. I'm a little fuzzy on the details but they seem to be updating the story to 1990s New York to allow for a hip-hop soundtrack and something named Puff Daffy, or was it P Diddly?, is in negotiations to play Temptation.

Norman, having had a productive conversation with his agents, went to sleep early. I, being a little on the insomniac side, stayed up studying my music and turned on the home theater for company. While channel surfing, I ran across a cheap horror movie on one of the late night premium cable channels entitled The Killer Eye . Now, I have something of a soft spot for schlock horror. No matter how rotten the movie, there is usually at least one redeeming quality; it can be an over the top performance (Dennis Christopher in Fade to Black ); it can be an arresting visual design ( A Nightmare on Elm Street ); it can be a goofy sense of humor ( Return of the Living Dead ); it can be an incredibly silly piece of illogic (the skinless chick in Hellraiser II who, despite glistening with blood in every frame, never leaves a spot on the white carpet or furniture). The names Linnea Quigley or Jeffrey Combs in the credits can give me goose bumps of anticipation. I was, therefore, looking forward to some innocent mind candy.

Unfortunately, I could find absolutely no redeeming qualities in The Killer Eye . The plot, what little of it there is, involves the standard mad scientist who, in his attempt to see into the eighth dimension (Why eight? What was wrong with five, six and seven?), injects hapless victims eyes with his special formula. Something goes wrong one night and a victim's eye crawls out of its socket, killing its poor owner, and blows up to a six-foot spherical beach ball that shoots green lightning. Despite its enormous size, it's able to hide in the apartment house out of which the scientist operates, sliding through ducts unnoticed, and surprising nubile young maidens in the bath.

I shan't attempt to give more plot details because there didn't seem to be any. The eye has something of a libido problem and its tentacles caress buxom wenches in various states of undress. The dead victim who owned the eye comes back to life at some point, how or why is not explained, and joins in the chase. A couple of stoner dudes, who I presume are supposed to be the comic relief, wander in and out making what I think are supposed to be jokes but which aren’t the least bit funny. Every once in a while, people stop running and screaming long enough to engage in a lot of nonsense talk about seeing into various dimensions of time and space. The whole cast seems to live in the same three rooms (why is not explained) and they all wander in and out of each other’s spaces, no matter what’s going on, although it’s usually a sex scene. I presume this group living element had to do with a very low budget, rather than plot or common sense as the producers needed the majority of the dollars for tentacle effects and bad lightning opticals.

The movie stars no actor of whom you have ever heard and, given the lack of talent on display, no one whom you will ever hear of again. The acting is non-existent. The direction and camerawork seems designed only to hide the wires (not terribly successfully) and the script seems to have been one of those 'lets make it up as we go along' jobs despite three credited writers. It comes from Full Moon Entertainment, home of the endless Puppetmaster series. In comparison, Puppetmaster emerges as a work rivaling Citizen Kane in its artistry and complexity.

This is a film to be avoided at all costs as it may induce permanent brain damage. Should you come across this on late night cable, switch to the Flowbee infomercial.


Gratuitous shower scenes. Gratuitous sex scenes. Gratuitous eye tentacles in shower scenes. Gratuitous eye tentacles in sex scenes. Laughable monster. Even more laughable victims.

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