The Headless Eyes

Whoa! This low-budget experiment in horror was directed by me, Kent Bateman, and with few funds, we did the best we could. Obviously, it wasn't fitted with enough blood and gore for the distributor, so the producer, Ron Sullivan, added some scenes. I only wish to make a comment on the assertion of a reviewer who erroneously referred to me, Kent Bateman, as aka Henri Pachard. Mr. Ron Sullivan, the producer of the film, aka Henri Pachard, producer of over 300 porno films, took my director's cut and added footage I never wrote or directed. This is just to set the record straight. Kent Bateman is not HENRI PACHARD. Please refer to my own IMDb listing. If you go to Henri Pachard's IMDb listing, you will see that he doesn't even list Headless Eyes as one of his films.

Basement grindhouse fare, not as gory as it's reputed featuring an unhinged performance by Bo Brundin as the tortured artist who loses an eye, but discovers a new art form.

Frustrated artists always seem to be fodder for film psychopathy, and 'The Headless Eyes' continues that trend in earnest, assisted by a compelling title no doubt responsible for much of its appeal (that and as other reviewers have remarked, the graphic VHS cover art).

Gritty-looking guerilla-style location photography and some almost avant garde touches in Kent Bateman's directorial debut shows potential, but the novel plot device disappointingly never evolves into more than a just a few random stalk & slash encounters. I'd hoped the art student sub-plot late in the picture might resurrect things, but it looks like the $$$ may have evaporated and instead the film ends quite abruptly.

The incessant shrieking of 'my eye!' will live-on in your consciousness well beyond the meagre 70 mins runtime, an enduring accomplishment few films achieve, but unless you're a devotee of no-budget 70's slashers, I think you could feel underwhelmed by 'The Headless Eyes'.

A thieving artist has his eye gouged out by a spoon when trying to rob a woman's apartment. This nutter then goes round New York killing women whose eyeballs he removes, which he uses to create a new bit of artwork back in his studio.

The Headless Eyes is pretty much an example of grind-house exploitation fodder. It's a very rough and ready flick with minimal production values. But then I guess you would expect that for a grade Z movie. However, it does at least make some attempt at being dare I say it, artistic. There are occasional interesting shots, while the music fits with the feel quite well. It has a pretty scuzzy atmosphere overall and is another that utilises the very mean streets of 70's New York to decent effect. It's a clear precursor to Abel Ferrara's very similar movie The Driller Killer which came out a few years later. Unlike that one, The Headless Eyes never did make the video nasty list, which in some ways is surprising seeing as it was available in a striking video cover on home video in early 80's Britain and it also has considerably more mean spirited violence than many films that made up that list. That said it's not exactly impressive. Quite a lot of the time it's pretty terrible in fact, especially that opening looped use of the line 'My eye! My eye!' But the griminess and rough approach do sort of work in its favour some of the time, giving it a sleazy feel that's in keeping with its overall concept.

My eyes! AAOOOAAAUUUGGHH! My eyes! That's what I screamed myself after watching this atrocity of a film. No gore, no effects, no acting, no sense. The movie opens with a guy robbing a woman's apartment while she sleeps, and when she wakes up and screams, he tries to silence her by getting on top of her and smothering her mouth and nose. Fortunately she grabs a nearby spoon on the nightstand and slides it along the intruder's temple – no wait, she actually penetrates his eye socket with it!?! With his eye popped out and dangling by its nerve, the man stumbles out of the apartment, out the hall, down the fire escape and crawls to a stop in the alley. The entire time howling the ever-looped line "My EYE! My eyyyyyye!" In case you miss him hearing it during this opening credit sequence, don't worry. It's played and replayed every 7 minutes for the rest of the film. During which time we see the main character (who happens to be a failed artist of some sort) finally get his comeuppance by cutting out the eyes of women and "freezing" them in blocks of ice (?) as art.

The highlight scene has to be the news report in front of the apartment of one of the killer's first victims. First of all (as someone else has pointed out), nobody shows the first hint of suspicion about the creepy-looking guy with the eyepatch being at the crime scene where the victim had her eyes cut out. Secondly, since when are funeral services held at a person's apartment building, complete with coffin being carried down the steps into the street? And lastly, you gotta love the reporter's interview of the folks. He asks one woman what she knew about the murdered, and her answer is pricelessly generic. Perplexed at the woman's response, the reporter realizes he has lost track of who the actor with the scripted line is amongst the crowd and openly calls out the improvised line, "I understand one of you knew the victim quite well" to find the proper response. Obviously, whoever it was that had the all-important line for the scene was stuck in traffic when it was filmed, because we don't get any good answer for the poor reporter.

Oh, and about the guy who plays the "eyeball killer". He's a lot of fun to watch. I always wondered what it would be like if a burned-out community theatre director played a C-horror serial killer. Now I know. With hilarious monologues and delicious overacting, he hams up everything beautifully in what can best be described as Shakespeare's "Othello" meets Lustig's "Maniac". From victim to victim to potential admirer to the incredibly lame finale, we know this guy's insane because he keeps rambling to himself that he's "got to finish" something or other. My guess is there's only about 15 copies of this movie left in existence. It needs to get snatched up quick and given the DVD treatment, so that low-budget horror fans everywhere can take it home and give it the MST treatment. It is indeed that bad.

There's a lot to be said about this grisly extreme low budget thing, much of it not too good so far, however it is a precursor to the Henenlotter style, not a copy of such, as was implied by another commenter. It's not hard to imagine that Henenlotter, Abel Ferrara and maybe even Scorcese caught this at a midnight screening or something when they were younger. If viewed being mindful of its year of production (released 1973 but production started around 1970-71), it comes on the heels of the angst-ridden French New Wave and borrows much from that style. Every independent film "artist" was familiar with the French New Wave, especially New Yorked based ones

There are actually moments that are quite unnerving watching this eye-stealing serial killer move in and out of a psychosis and stalk his prey. Not as nicely done as Michael Lerner's eye-obsessed maniac in ANGUISH, but still effective. It's hinted that he may have two personalities, but it really seems more like schizophrenia. (No, they are not the same thing!) The gore effects are poor to adequate for the time and budget, they would be considered lame by modern standards. As typical for horror films of this period, it's reflective of the bloodshed and violence of Vietnam that was consistently broadcast over television, and of the dread regarding the effects of the war on returning veterans. This is a common theme, that has become more visible as time passes, in horror and other films of violence of the time

While the main character, the killer, has nothing to do with the war, the mental anguish and violence are sure themes of this period. You won't like this much if you must have super-realistic gore effects and hyper-intense action with cardboard characters, but for those horror fans who lived through this period and those who are interested in studying the horror films of the time, this one is worth the few dollars you can buy it for on VHS on Amazon, less than what it costs on ebay, where it's available on bootleg DVDs. With a wonderfully eerie soundtrack as well and a nicely done understated ending. Nice to view on a double-feature with THE SEVERED ARM.