Eight Eyes

Eight Eyes takes you on a wonderful trip of tension building and release cycles. 16mm film, in camera effects, and the eastern European setting mesh well to create a cohesive art direction for this memorable film.

I was pleasantly surprised by the restrained use of gore. What was there was effective, but never so much or so often as to become desensitizing or tiresome.

The acting was fantastic (especially female lead and the main antagonist) with a solid script. It also includes an interesting story/thematic twist on the genre. So, while the film nailed the genre(s) it was going for, it was also unique and memorable. Definitely worth a watch for anyone into indie or throwback/analog horror.

You wonder why the makers of films like "Eight Eyes" pull out all the stops in making a film that looks like a grindhouse flick from the '70s when the movie itself could only have been made in modern times.

It's shot on old cameras, has retro-style introductory titles, and a low-key synthesiser score like something sampled on a Moog, but the relationships and characters are straight out of any modern movie.

It seems to clash.

It doesn't help that most of the movie feels like a rip-off of "Hostel", a movie from the new millennium, and only seems to ape "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" toward the end of it.

I didn't really get it. Why evoke so much of Yugoslav culture and history, just to finish off in a splatter fest that could have happened anywhere?

Nor did I really understand what the ending was getting at. There's a long hallucinatory sequence that was maybe just in the movie to make it seem more dingy and grindhouse?

Also I didn't really understand how our unlikeable protagonist went from the streets of Macedonia to the hide-out of the bad guys, nor what the bad guys actually wanted with them. What was with the naked fat guy in the mask?

Maybe that was just a nod to Texas Chainsaw, ie. This movie's version of Leatherface.

Whatever. By that time I was mostly just waiting for the movie to end.

Despite the good reviews from fans of Eastern European horror flicks, I did not get this one. It was like Hostel but with a touch of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but less exciting than both. It was cliche, and the scenes were all over the place. I cannot imagine how this got so much rave and good reviews. It was underacted and the cinematography was ineffective in depicting the situation. I wished the movie was longer, and the story had so much to offer other than bland horrifying scenes and underwhelming chase scenes. There was a lack of good character arc and the story was linear, so much so that the entire film was boring to watch.

Austin Jennings creates a darkly romantic portrait of Serbian family dysfunction. It explores a couple's (Cass and Gav) travels while filming footage with vintage equipment.

The story follows them until meeting a stranger, Saint Peter. Then like with many cinematic tropes of the American tourists in a foreign country, things go array.

It's slow moving but if you are a film technie, this film is for you. The director explores Italian filmmaking, 70s Giallo and horror genres by using practical effects with a selection of cameras. Although Jennings really tried to produce something new, rather than mimicking.

The acting by Emily Sweet as Cass, the woman in peril, holds the storytelling with the performance of Bruno Veljanovski as Saint Peter. Location shots are well photographed and as well as interior shots of trains, apartments, etc.

Part Hostel, part Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and part bizarre neon horror.

Eight Eyes might not quite fully come together in the end, and might be an offender of style over substance. But dang, it was still a pretty cool movie.

It looks fantastic, the acting is pretty good, and it doesn't come off as amateur hour, even though I am sure the budget was low. The special effects are great, and while it is a slow burn, I was pretty locked in and engaged. So, it does enough right for me to still give it a full throated recommend and an 8 star rating for Eight Eyes.

Definitely my kind of thing, and I have a feeling this will appeal to fans of the genre.