Review of Eyes Without a Face (1960) by Jonathan R — 04 Sep 2015

Eyes without a Face (or "Les yeux sans visage") is a 1959 French/Italian horror film about a renowned surgeon who kidnaps young women and tries to graph their faces on to that of his daughters, who's own face was left horrible disfigured after a car wreck that her father was responsible for.

Touching, isn't it? Considered extremely controversial for 1959, this horror film didn't just get negative reviews by critics, it was outright hated by them in both France and America. All the controversy was over one surgery scene in which a girl gets her face sliced off.

It was pretty graphic and I can see why it would cause a flare amongst critics and moviegoers of the late 50's. But this was marketed as a horror film and they're suppose to shock and thrill you.

One theater reported that seven people fainted during the scene, so I guess you could say it was the Hostel of it's time. The scene looks pretty realistic and even made me cringe up a bit. But this one scene is about as violent as it gets, the rest of the film is pretty mild aside from the ending.

The film does drag on from time to time but it makes up for it with well character development, especially Dr. Génessier and Christiane, the two main characters in the film. Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brassuer) isn't the typical run of the mill mad scientist we're so use to seeing in horror films.

Here we see someone who is calm and quit-witted, but also grief-stricken at the fact that this is all his fault and he doesn't take pleasure kid-napping women and preforming surgery on them, but feels he must to atone for his carelessness.

Christiane (Edith Scob), daughter to the good doctor, wears a white mask through about 90% of the film. The mask is a perfect mold of the actresses own face which makes it look very natural and this mask would later serve as an inspiration for the mask used in Halloween, as stated by John Carpenter.

Christiane's movement throughout the film is very fluent and dream-like, Edith Scob does a great job of showing emotion through body language as a substitution for lack of facial expression. Her character doesn't actually play the villain, she's more of the protagonist if anything.

She spends most of her time alone in her room nursing her many pet doves and trying to come to terms with her disfigurement. The musical score did need to improving, in my opinion it sounds a little like circus music.

It's isn't very menacing, but isn't too out of place either. The dialogue is pretty good, but it does get over dramatic at times. However, it is in the french language (which I dont speak) with English subtitles, so I feel my criticism wouldn't do justice on this.

The film sends a pretty powerful message that beauty comes from within and to accept your fate, and accept yourself for who you are. Seeking outer beauty can sometimes come at a high cost, so high that it eventually turns you into something ugly.

Overall this is a great film in regards to acting, special effects, set design and atmosphere. It does lack a lot of the scares of your typical horror film, but this was done intentionally to be able to pass the censors for screening to make up for the surgery scene.

That's what I love about a lot of foreign films, especially from France, Italy or Japan. They aren't afraid to take a risk at something no one wants to try. And if you take a look at the new wave of French horror now, you will see a glaring difference between it and American horror.

Far more originality and far more shocking. They don't sellout by making a billion different zombie and demon possession movies that try to out do The Exorcist and Night of the Living Dead like we do over here.

Instead they just move on to new ideas. We could stand to learn a lot from the French. Sorry to say, but they got us beat when it comes to horror and always have. Eyes without a Face is definitely a film to watch if you like classic B&W horror as well as being a great starting point if you're interested in dipping into French horror.

Though it isn't a horror film that everyone will enjoy, it is a good film regardless of genre. French horror probably wouldn't be so shocking if they didn't have this film as a blueprint.