Review of Eyes Without a Face (1960) by Kalif V — 24 Feb 2011

A bizarre film in which the director has mixed art and horror together to create a very unique film. Unfortunately, it wasn't the tour-de-force I was hoping for. The movie does some things exceptionally well and contains some very frightening scenes.

But overall the film is too campy to be horrifying and not campy enough to be funny. So it sits in this weird space in-between, where you don't laugh while watching it but don't cringe either.

The film sits in this odd in-between space for about 85% of the movie. The horror scenes are genuinely frightening, but there are far too few of them. There is a lot of symbolism in the film but most of it is predictable.

I never thought I would be scared of a girl just walking around in a mask, but that gaunt figure and white little plastic mask are downright terrifying. I think the directors could have gone a lot of different ways with this one, but tried to do too many things at once and in the process missed all their targets.

It's only intermittently scary which was the real disappointment for me. But it's worth a watch, for sure.