THE HEADLESS EYES

CONTAINS SPOILERS AND TEDIUM

The first time I ever heard of this miserable grindhouse cheapie was in an article in marvellous 80s fanzine Shock Xpress: a list of The 50 Most Boring Films Ever Made. It never troubled the BBFC (though the DPP apparently showed some interest in the pre-cert video release), I certainly don't recall ever seeing it on the shelves of any of the local VHS rental palaces of the time, and it hasn't (yet) been dug out and remastered by one of the retro specialist labels, though there is a US DVD release. The thing is, while it is available online (legitimately), its absence from British shelves may not entirely be a bad thing.

The Headless Eyes is a cheerless and shoddy slice of incompetent grot and senseless, incoherent bellowing with the occasional sight of eyeballs. Arthur Malcolm (Bo Brundin) is a homicidal maniac who goes around murdering people and gouging their eyes out for use in his artworks, following an incident where he burgled a house and a terrified woman took one of his eyes out with a spoon. He rants and shouts a lot, argues with his ex-wife, begins a tentative relationship with an art student - but every so often he has to go out and get some fresh eyes...

It's horrible, sleazy, amateurish and mostly dull; it's technically pretty ropey and generally badly put together, with terrible music, rotten acting and poor sound recording making a lot of Malcolm's ranting hard to make out sometimes, assuming you can be bothered to try. And it's no fun: it's grim, humourless and depressing. Fans of early 70s Z-grade grindhouse splatter movies might get a kick out of it but the only noteworthy aspect is that auteur Kent Bateman later turned up as the producer of Teen Wolf Too, an early vehicle for his son Jason Bateman (now of course a proper Hollywood star in proper Hollywood movies). And that is about as noteworthy as it gets. Drivel.

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