(back of video blurb):
"THE VOICE ON THE TELEPHONE
ALL WOMEN DREADED. A sleepy marina community
is transformed into a group of terrified residents when a gruesome series of
sex murders continues unchecked.
Police
investigations seem to lack urgency, and Jane, a local television news reader
appeals to viewers to pass on useful information to herself.
Jane's boyfriend asks her to move
in with him, but she is more concerned with protecting her blind and deaf-mute
sister Tracy, with whom she is living. Tracy's condition is rooted in a childhood
trauma when she was raped and left for dead.
Jane's persistant enquiries lead
her to break into the apartment of a man she suspects, searching for evidence.
She uses the same frightening tactics on him which the killer uses - making
menacing telephone calls. But her ploy backfires when he recognises the voice
as that of the TV news reader..." choice dialogue:
"If we wen't around arresting everybody without a belt they'd
run out of [jail] space in no time!"
Back in the early 80's there were,
as you know if you're a regular reader of A welcome dollop of cheese is added
to help the sleaze go down courtesy of a slightly demented Nancy Drewesque performance
from Lauren Tewes (of TV's LOVE BOAT no less!). She plays Jane, a feisty
news anchor woman at a Completely by chance Jane begins
to suspect her fat slob neighbour, Stanley Herbert (John De Santi) of the killings
after she spies him changing his shirt and acting strangely in the apartment
building's underground car-park. She puts on her sleuth hat to prove his guilt-
something the audience is all too well aware of after a very half hearted attempt
to hide his face near the beginning is abandoned to show him stalking without
a disguise- (So that 'aint much of a spoiler The killer phones his victims before
he closes in on them, which is an obvious attempt to repeat some of the thrills
from the phone terror formula initiated by BLACK CHRISTMAS (1975) and
honed by WHEN A STRANGER CALLS (1979). It pretty much goes without saying
that the film fails in that department miserably. The sounds of Herbert giggling
down the phone and saying "I'm going to fuck you bitch!" is certainly
sleazy enough, but he's usually re-buffed with bored sounding sarcasm, one of
his victims-to-be quipping, "Why don't you stick it in your ear and go jump
in the bay!". Also him sing-songing most of his threats- "I'm going to…
k-i-l-l... you … De-b-bie!" is pretty ridiculous; as is the fact that we
are supposed to swallow the fact that, after tormenting a woman by phone in
her office, he knows the The only scene that even approaches
generating any scares is one where Herbert follows home an English waitress
from a topless go-go bar , causing her to remark "Is this someone's idea
of a bloody joke?", as launches into another one of his giggling phones
tirades. There are a couple of decent jump scenes and there's that old slasher
flick classic- a decapitated head in an unusual place (this time a fish tank).
So we can be thankful of small mercies.
But really, it was only Tewes' cheesy
bug-eyed performance that kept me from jabbing at the eject button, it was fun
to see how far she'd go with the increasingly daft lengths she took to snoop
on the killer ( I really got a kick out of the 'cuckoo clock as vital clue',
which lead Tewes to deadpan the line, "This is kinda crazy, but can a cuckoo
clock make music- or does it just go cuck-o-o-o?"… And her turning the tables
on the killer- "Let's talk about you Mr phone freak!"). … Poor Jennifer
Jason Leigh though is clearly under the impression that she's in a much better
film and is Most of the time the film shuffles
from one pretty suspenseless scene to another- all the while bathed in that
pastel nihilistic look that so many of this early 80's skid row flicks share-
you know, that peculiar ambience resulting from a combination of blistering
sunshine, cheap film stock and a bad video transfer. In fact, despite all its
sleazy trappings, EYES OF THE STRANGER plays like a long forgotten TV
movie of the week- looking all the more anaemic as a result of practically all
Tom Savini's gore effects being hacked out prior to its release. It eventually
limps to a climax which is minorly rousing , but is sign-posted clearly from
about 10 minutes in; and will only come as a shock if you haven't seen REAR
WINDOW (1954) or WAIT UNTIL DARK (1967) - this flick's director clearly
had.
Jane's Boyfriend tries dissuade her from her current line of investigation
,
an avalanche of slasher flicks blotting the silver screen with gobs of gore.
Most were your usual teen pruners- stalking those too stupid to realise that
moonlit strolls in hot pants weren't the best idea. However, there were a few
films that owed as much to the Grindhouse as they did to Carpenter's HALLOWEEN
- EYES OF A STRANGER is one of them. Along with such dubious 'pleasures'
as DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE (1980) and DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE (1980),
it, whilst not being quite as debased as either of those two, signifies the
kind of film that had women lining up round the block (not to see the film-
rather to bash patrons round the head with placards!).
Miami
based TV station who's reporting on a series of rape murders of local women.
Seeming to have her own private agenda she gravely intones to the audience,
"It's important for the people themselves to demonstrate their concern over
this situation. We've got a psycho running around out there. Every women should
report anything unusual- any odd encounter." She even gives her co-host
Roger a hard time (on air!) if he doesn't take the recent spate of murders gravely
enough when he reports their details. … It turns out that the recent spate of
murders have hit a raw nerve because her sister, Tracy, was abducted as a child,
raped and left for dead after she had made her wait for outside a house alone
(the abduction is shown in a leering flashback sequence). Tracy survived her
ordeal (now played by 19 year old Jennifer Jason Leigh (although she looks much
younger)), but was left deaf, dumb and blind from shock- and now lives with
Jane in their marina apartment.
folks-
EYES OF A STRANGER doesn't set itself up as a whodunnit- in-fact you
have to wonder exactly what it wanted to be).
number
of the emergency phone in the lift as she flees so as to carry on the menacing
her!
pretty
convincing in her role as deaf, dumb, blind, but feisty teen. However, I doubt
she pops this tape on at parties and gets all misty eyed reminiscing! To think
that Holly Hunter took THE BURNING off her résumé- I wouldn't be surprised
if Leigh didn't go to Hell and back in an effort to seek and destroy every copy
of this turkey!
[ ... not that it would spoil it a great deal (let's face it- what
could?!), but Jennifer Jason Leigh's big scene comes at the end of this movie.
So, if you want to see what happens (including one of the only half-decent Savini
gore-fx to survive the censors snippage) then go here.
]
BODYCOUNT
8 
female:3 / male:5
1) Female found dead floating in water
2) Male decapitated (off-screen) with
meat cleaver
3) Female strangled (off-screen) with
belt
4) Female killed (method unseen)
5) Male stabbed in the neck
6) Female has throat slit
7) Female killed (method unseen)
8) Male shot through forehead
