Directed by David DeCoteau (as Richard Chasen)
Expectations: Low, I’ve heard this one is one of the poorest Full Moon films.
On the general scale:
On the B-Movie scale:
The Killer Eye is the epitome of a trashy movie. It plays like a textbook example of film filler, with maybe a half hour of actual story and the rest of the film ballooned out into an 80-minute feature with consecutive, extended tentacle-fondling scenes. The only explanation is that every time there was an issue with the story or the film’s production, producer Charles Band must have answered with “Throw in another tentacle scene.” It kind of works for this movie though, because despite all of its shortcomings it remains entertaining overall. I suppose your mileage will vary depending on how much you like gigantic killer eyes peering out of vents and zapping people in the eyes though.
The film opens with a deliberate Re-Animator vibe, complete with an opening title sequence with medical diagrams and whimsical music like the far superior Stuart Gordon film of 1985. In The Killer Eye, a scientist hoping to prove the existence of the 8th dimension, tries out some chemicals in the eye of a street punk that should theoretically allow him to look through the doc’s microscope and into the 8th dimension. I didn’t see it coming, but get this– shit goes wrong and instead of only being able to see the 8th dimension, something is able to break thru into our world! Seriously, never woulda guessed that would happen! Anyway, the street punk’s eye grows to gigantic size (complete with long, dangling eye-stalk tentacles) and scuttles away into the air vents, which instantly makes me think of the eye rolling through the vents on the wheeled contraption that Klaus Kinski used to navigate the vents in Crawlspace. So far so good…
To call this a horror movie is wrong, it’s more of a comedic, horror softcore movie (as opposed to a softcore horror/comedy. Yes, there’s a difference.). Softcore is the true genre here, but this isn’t for couples watching Cinemax at 2 A.M. Unless you both enjoy tentacles fondling breasts, in which case, congrats on finding a ridiculously kinky and compatible mate! The film has elements of horror and comedy thrown in only to string the tentacle-fondling scenes together, and I would rather it be flipped the other way. In any case, as the eye moves around the film it preys on the sexually unsatisfied females and rapes them with his eye stalk while fondling their breasts with his phallic, kielbasa-lookin’ tendril. Each of these scenes lasts a few minutes and there’s at least four of them, one of which involves the violated female and her husband looking on, lifting his dress shirt and absently rubbing his oiled, chiseled chest. They were both placed under the spell of the killer eye so it is understandable, but it still makes for one of the creepiest and most disturbing scenes in the film.
I’ve heard this called one of Full Moon’s worst, and realistically that’s not too far from the truth. Personally, I felt this remained entertaining enough throughout, if for nothing else but to see just what would come next. A big reason why I enjoy B-pictures is this element of WTF and the unfiltered quality to the stories. Sometimes it yields amazing, incredible results. Other times, it does nothing more than cause head-shaking and burned-in mental images I won’t soon forget. The Killer Eye belongs to the latter category, but honestly it could have been a lot worse. At least this one had some good moments of comedy, both intentional and unintentional, and the lovely Jacquelline Lovell who I became enamored with in the much better Charles Band film, Hideous!
Next week, it’s Full Moon’s latest flick and the long-awaited sequel, The Killer Eye 2: Halloween Haunt! I’ve got a bad feeling about this one.