Eyes without a Face
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“Eyes without a Face” (or “Les Yeux Sans visage” in its original French language) is a little know, but highly regarded horror film from 1960. It is a beautifully shot old school horror movie. It is the tale of a disfigured daughter, and the lengths her father will go to “cure” her. One cannot deny the skill used in making “Eyes without a Face”, though modern horror lovers may find the tale to tame. For lovers of early horror classics, this one deserves at least a watch, if not a permanent place in your collection.

“Eyes without a Face” is the tale of the brilliant, but mad Dr. Génessier. He is a man haunted a car accident which caused his daughter, Christiane, to be horribly disfigured. The guilt of this incident has caused the doctor to search for a way to transport the facial skin of one human, to another. The Doctor, with the help of his assistant Louise, kidnaps young women, in order to remove their faces, and attempt to graft them onto Christiane’s head. Sadly, for all parties involved, the young women do not survive the traumatic operations, and so far, none of the transplants have been successful. Christiane is forced to stay in her father’s secluded house, while the whole world believes her to be dead. In her mansion shaped prison, she must always wear an eerily human mask.

First things first, this is a movie from the 1960’s. Though I surprised by the fact that there were pretty explicit scenes of face removal, now in days these scenes do not seem that horrifying. Why? Because as the faces are removed, it is obvious that what you are being shown is far from reality (AKA far from cutting edge special effects). This being said, the idea of gore should not scare away classic horror fans, or modern horror fans. The films power is not so much in disturbing the viewer, as it is in creating a haunting atmosphere. Here, “Eyes without a Face” succeeds in spades. The film is beautifully shot in black and white, and the film more often than not takes on a dream like quality. The other side of this is that the film is far from realistic. The police in this film are incompetent to a level of frustration. This may be a small complaint, but a scene at the end involving police was frustrating enough to take me out of the film a bit.

One of the reasons this movie is successful is because of the portrayal of Christiane. She is never portrayed as a demon; rather she seems as much of a victim as the young girls being murdered. Her disfigured face is never on clear display, the one scene where the mask is removed is done with an out of focus shot, hinting at the level of her disfigurement, but never exploiting it. This creates the fact that she is far from a monster. At times, even Dr. Génessier is portrayed as a sympathetic character. He seems more like a man who has been driven to his murderous actions by guilt, not genuine evil. His actions never come close to seeming justified, but as a character, he is multi-faceted.

Should you see “Eyes without a Face”? I would say if you are a horror fan of any kind you owe it to yourself to at least give this little known classic a watch. With Halloween at hand, keep an eye out on the cable guide, you might just find this one on. For those of you who love classics like “The Haunting” and “Psycho”, this one might be worth the purchase. It may not quite reach the lofty heights of those two films, but its close. 4 Cans.


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Added:  Monday, October 02, 2006
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