Eyes Behind the Stars

For some reason, in the late 70's and early 80's the local CBS affiliated station in New York kept playing this movie in it's late-night slot on Friday or Saturday nights for several years, usually at 2 a.m. or some such time. It's a fitting movie for that time slot since it's really hard to follow and quite odd (see the other reviews for specific story info). Anyway, after catching it numerous times in those days just before cable TV (And even after it hit but before they offered much all night programming), I kept catching this little oddity. After not seeing it for many years I decided to see if I could find it on DVD. Well, it is only available (from every search i've conducted anyway)in a pretty lousy grainy print on the budget label "Brentwood Video" as part of a 4-pack of movies (4 movies on 2 double sided discs)called "Alien Worlds" if anyone is interested. It's usually available for around $10-but even much less if you shop around. The other 3 movies on this set are readily available in numerous other collections of public domain movies, so no need to comment on them here. But I haven't seen "Eyes" available anywhere else. Though hardly a "restored" version in any way, this print runs exactly 92 minutes, so for once IMDb's stated running time of 90 minutes is not correct. Even with the 92 minute running time it's not unusual for a movie dubbed into English from another language to also have some of the running time trimmed. It seems to be a common budget-conscience practice to sometimes save money by not bothering to dub some scenes at all if they are not considered to be important to the story. Would a longer version make in any less confusing? Who really knows-unless you've seen it in it's native language... By the way, my attempts to watch this during the day don't work and I end up just turning it off. There's something about watching this in the middle of the night that just fits this movie..or maybe it's just from my earlier experiences, who know??

This film was not nearly as much of a chore as I expected it to be. There are a few seconds of brilliance in this somewhat idiotic hardcore UFO conspiracy paranoia-fest. Most of the acting is mediocre, but fairly typical for 1970s-style stuff replete with pregnant pauses. A photographer and a model witness some strange goings-on in the woods and soon fall victim to these same goings-on. Flying saucers are spotted, more people disappear - but is it the aliens or our own government's ultra-secret group of cover-up guys? Soon enough, a reporter and a "UFOlogist" (apparently modeled on the character of the writer-director) are drawn into this unraveling fiasco and become the target of the ultra-secret agents who are as menacing as they are improbable and witless. Then the fun really begins.

The movie, predictably, makes about as much sense as the average UFO conspiracy theory, but should be commended for taking itself so seriously. The camera work is OK for a low-budget film, the pacing is pretty good, the script is silly and absurd, and there are continuity issues which are fun to look out for. What are the few seconds of brilliance I mentioned? Honestly, I can't say much you without writing a spoiler. Suffice to say that the end of the film is, at least, worth fast-forwarding to if you can't take the middle.

I got this title as part of a cheap 100-movie sci-fi set. I'm a big fan of 1970s exploitation cinema, and at first, I thought the film had some promise - it looks like it has some good creepy atmosphere, and it's Italian, so there's bound to be some gratuitous violence, gore, and nudity, despite cheesy special effects and a sketchy plot. What's more, even if it's stupid, it's bound to be entertaining!

Okay, I was right about the cheesy effects and sketchy plot, but the rest? Not so much.

This is one of those films in that uncomfortable middle ground in the B-movie hierarchy – it's not sensational enough to be a guilty pleasure or awful enough to be unintentional comedy, yet it's far too incompetent to be considered good on its own merits.

The basic premise is that extraterrestrials are lurking around an unspecified location in the UK for reasons that are never entirely made clear. These aliens can make themselves invisible, but they apparently show up in photographs, as a photographer inadvertently takes pictures of them during a photo shoot with a beautiful female model in the woods. (Note to Italian exploitation fans: She remains fully clothed.) The photographer takes the photos to a journalist and complications ensue; the aliens pursue and abduct the photographer, killing a bystander in the process. The police and the military get involved. More people die. (Note to Italian exploitation fans: There is zero gore.) The journalist consults with a paranoid UFO researcher, and both of them wind up being pursued by shadowy government agents known as the Silencers, along with the aliens. It's basically like an extended episode of the X-Files.

The plot is full of holes and is nearly incoherent at times, which is not necessarily unusual for 70s Italian fare, but the filmmakers take far too long getting to the point. The screenplay and direction are limp and leaden for roughly the first hour of running time; there is virtually no sizzle or excitement until the third act, by which time the viewer is hardly paying attention. Like the American UFO researchers who apparently inspired this piece, the filmmakers evidently took themselves far too seriously to have any fun.

It would be neglectful of me not to explain the title of my review, and give some examples of the filmmaker's incompetence while I'm at it:

~ The sequences of the "invisible" aliens stalking the characters are filmed in the first person, using a fisheye lens, accompanied by a mindless droning high-pitched "chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp" synthesizer track and an occasional metallic heavy-breathing sound. As the aliens approach, the room lights go out, and the characters usually stand still rather than investigating why the lights went out as most normal people presumably would. (Note to Italian exploitation fans: Although the beautiful model is involved in these sequences, she remains fully clothed here too, and the aliens never do anything truly exciting like, say, beheading a character.) The director obviously intended for these sequences to be suspenseful, but he relies on them too much and drags them out far too long – one gets the sense that he was simply padding the movie's running time. What's worse, I could still hear the obnoxious "chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp" in my head the morning after watching the film.

~ The film's British locale is never believable. Not only do none of the buildings look British, but the cars are left-hand drive, and characters' offices and apartments are decorated with picturesque posters with British tourist attractions on them, making the sets look as if they were decorated by a travel agent – which they probably were.

~ Important and potentially exciting plot points happen off-screen. Several deaths are either only discussed, or we only see the aftermath as the police are investigating. What's worse, most of the deaths that occur on-camera are dull – the aliens kill with mysterious "radiation poisoning" and the characters merely keel over. We also never actually see the aliens abduct a character; the abductions are merely implied by fast edits of flashing lights, the camera zooming in on the open door of the flying saucer, and the character appearing inside.

~ The dubbing is truly awful, and annoyingly vacillates between spelling out the letters "U-F-O" and pronouncing it like an acronym, "You-foe." The movie also features some of the most atrociously overblown, pretentious, and utterly nonsensical dialogue I've heard since watching 'R.O.T.O.R.' On the other hand, hearing Martin Balsam being voiced by another person who sounds nothing like him is rather novel and entertaining. (Mr. Balsam must have been really hard up for a paycheck at this point in his career.)

~ The Silencers are some of the sloppiest secret agents in movie history; they travel in an enormous and conspicuous black Cadillac, frequently tailing other characters by only a few car lengths, and they hand off a "secret" audio tape in the middle of a city street in plain view of the character whose conversation they just recorded. In another sequence, the head Silencer dramatically puts on sunglasses indoors before shaking down a character, presumably to conceal his identity, but then he takes them off!

~ When the journalist character finally goes Action Hero in the final act, it comes across as unbelievable, but at least this results in a beat-down sequence that's arguably the film's only high point for Italian exploitation fans (I won't spoil it for you).

~ The ending is rather sudden, and was probably intended to be ironic and cynical, but it came across to me as lazy on the part of the screenwriter and director.

Frankly, if you're looking for low-brow sci-fi thrills, I would skip this one.

While out in the woods on a photo-shoot, a photographer accidentally captures pictures of aliens. He soon comes to the attention of secret government men who seem hell-bent on a cover-up.

The Italians were pretty adept at making entertaining movies in all genres of film. But if there is one thing I have learned it is that, aside from the early 80's post-apocalypse cycle, they weren't very good at sci-fi. The Eyes Behind the Stars is yet another example of this unfortunate observation. It's not as if this is a terrible movie – it has some good parts to it – but it really is a bit of an unfocused mess. The two threads of the story – the aliens and the paranoid thriller – aren't especially well integrated. It's like two completely different films merged together pretty ineffectively and awkwardly. There's probably a good basis for something reasonable to tell you the truth but they sure never put the ingredients together in a form that remains in the mind for very long that's for certain. Ironically, not long after viewing this movie you sort of cannot really remember it at all, as if you have been abducted by aliens, been probed and had your memory of the unfortunate incident completely erased. Most strange

What was this film?? It begins with the great Italian star Sherry Buchanan doing a phoot shoot in the woods, then the photographer thinks he took a photo of something odd. Then he realizes he took a photo of a UFO, then he goes back to that locaton, gets chased by something (we only see their POV) then gets abducted, then the aliens kill a local old man, and blinds his dog! Then they capture Sherry, then we finally see the aliens, who look like a bunch of guys in sji mask and goggles, then it becomes a detective movie with martin Balsam (dubbed by someone else) and the lead and Natalie Delon trying to find out what happened, as the Goverment "Silencers" are out to stop them! The ending is a real mess, and you realize that in the end, you couldn't root for anyone,and no clear explaniation on what the aliens were dong here, and why were they in cahoots with the baddies! A big bore from Italian cinema, but maybe if it gets re-released on video again, it might find an audience. Not with me though.