"Eyes of a Stranger" - a serial killer/sex pervert slasher film that WORKS, dammit!

You know, when popping this DVD in, I wasn't expecting much. The summary - a guy goes around killing and molesting women - sounded like a good way to kill a couple hours without paying too much attention to what was going on. Imagine my surprise when the flick turned out to be good. Indeed, "Eyes of a Stranger" is one of the true unappreciated gems of the early '80s slasher boom period. It's not purely a slice-n-dice gore flick, and it's not an out-and-out serial killer creepfest, it's some sort of bizarre meld of the two that works really well and somehow comes across as being realistic to boot. At least as realistic as a film about a lascivious dude who calls women on the phone before groping and killing them can be.

This movie is notable for one other thing - it's the only DVD I've seen whose sole selling point is the fact that JENNIFER JASON LEIGH (capitalized because it's mentioned no less than three times in the official back-of-the-box summary) is in it. Yup, the indie movie goddess who appears nude in countless arthouse flicks is in this movie, and according to the ever-accurate Wikipedia, it was her first film role. Who am I to doubt Wikipedia? It's a high-flyer of the highest order. Having seen Ms. Leigh in a grand total of two film roles ("Fast Times at Ridgemont High" and "eXistenZ") and familiar with her reputation as a dedicated "method" actor, I've got to say that she does a damn good job with this movie as a very unorthodox slasher heroine. More on that later. But, hell, everybody does. This one's got a very different feel from a lot of the crap that I review, so get ready for scatterbrained theater.

This is yet another movie that wastes little time getting right to the point, but when you're an early '80s kinda-sorta slasher film with the budget of a Filet-o-Fish, I suppose there isn't much time to waste. A mad serial killer is on the loose in Miami, with the AFOREMENTIONED M.O. of calling his attractive female victims before the typical sexual assault/murder coup de grace. We immediately meet prominent local reporter Jane Harris (Lauren Tewes, who is excellent as a very likable non-teen, non-horny heroine). Jane is in charge of her little sister Tracy (ol' blue eyes herself Jennifer Jason), a perfectly normal teenage girl with the one tiny exception of being both deaf and blind.

On a couple occasions throughout the movie, we're given some vague semblance of a clue as to just why Tracy has lost all auditory and optical functions. These flashbacks either aren't fleshed out very well or they're intentionally left mysterious; something about Jane driving Tracy to school during their school days, leading to the little girl version of Tracy being abducted and thus traumatized into her condition. It plays out a lot better on film than the convoluted way I put it, believe me.

Anyway, the cute blonde above is your star victim of the movie - our first money sequence and our introduction to the psycho-killer. In a long, drawn-out and quite tense sequence, she is called, stalked, and terrified into calling her boyfriend over to her apartment. Eventually, we meet the killer, wearing a mask that looks eerily similar to Terry Funk's Chainsaw Charlie getup and brandishing a massive knife. After decapitating the boyfriend (spoiler alert), he really has some fun with the blonde, ripping off her blouse and fondling her massive breasts in an absolute masterpiece of a scene. Cinematic genius, even. All kidding aside, it's an admittedly hokey but far more realistic in tone approach to the slasher films that peppered the landscape at the time, and a pretty damn good way to kick off the horror aspect of this flick.

The majority of the screen time in this flick is given to Tewes' Jane character, which works out very well. Being familiar with her only for "The Love Boat," it's quite interesting to see that long-running series' Cruise Director in a very different type of role, and she seems up to the task. She is infinitely likable as a reporter who desperately wants the serial killer brought to justice, and is even given some solid emotional depth in the form of her guilt for Tracy's condition.

Roughly halfway through the film, a few coincidences occur in the parking ramp of Jane's apartment building where she becomes convinced that someone who lives in her adjoining building is the killer. This being a serial killer film, her instincts are of course correct. There's some fascinating stuff where Jane attempts to convince her oblivious boyfriend of the guilt of the creepy staring guy across the street that serves to pad out the length of the film masterfully, along with another murder scene where our lust killer indulges in some more fantasy. Of course, this is a big positive, because the special effects work on this film is done by this man.

Yup, I had no clue what to expect from this movie that I'd never heard of in my life before popping it in, but upon seeing "Makeup effects by Tom Savini" in the opening credits immediately knew I was in for a treat. For the uninitiated, Tom Savini is THE guy when it comes to horror movie makeup/gore work. If you're like me and you prefer a halfway decent practical effect to hokey CGI, Savini is God. His stuff looks like it actually might be real, as opposed to just looking like computer graphics, and his effects work on films such as "Dawn of the Dead" (O.G. 1978 version), "Friday the 13th" and "The Burning" is legendary. There aren't as many big set pieces here, but the murders in this flick are all memorable. That opening bit featuring the blonde with big tits? Lovingly recreated decapitation complete with a shot of the head in a fish tank. Greatness.

As Jane enters the Nancy Drew investigative reporter mode, the killer becomes wise and begins targeting the comely anchorwoman - as well as her comely blind-and-deaf sister. I should also point out that he deduces this mystery after Jane CALLS him at home to tell him that she "knows what he's up to," and not soon afterward said killer hears Jane on the news and easily figures out that the person who just called is the angelic-voiced woman on TV. D'oh!

Of course, I should also mention that John DiSanti, the man charged with playing the serial killer, does an absolutely fantastic job. I haven't seen this guy in any other films, but he's pitch perfect as a serial killer. For students of multiple murder lore, it's common knowledge that they're not the spectral boogeymen that they're portrayed to be in Hollywood films; they're often sniveling, cowardly men, and DiSanti fits this role to a tee. This guy is slimy, sleazy, and just downright evil, and the ending of this movie works perfectly due to our genuine dislike for him.

The final act of the film is the perfectly telegraphed but still thrilling battle of wits between DiSanti (who goes by the name Stanley Herbert in the movie - is there a more perfect name for a sadistic lust murderer?) and Leigh, who finds herself alone in the apartment with the psycho. And yeah, we get nipple shots from the barely legal Leigh in the process. Both actors do a fantastic job in this sequence; DiSanti looks like he utterly enjoys tormenting and assaulting the helpless impaired girl, while Leigh somehow manages to be convincing in managing to fight back against her attacker.

It's also very nice to see an '80s slasher film that doesn't have an open ending. Oh yeah, another spoiler alert.

After watching the film and doing a little bit of research into it, I was a little surprised to find out that this film comes from the same production company that helmed the early "Friday the 13th" films. One of the writers, Ron Kurz, would later write "Friday the 13th Part II" and effectively be the first man to write Jason Voorhees, psychotic killer as the main villain of a horror film. "Eyes of a Stranger" has a very different feel from the F13 series; for starters, director Ken Wiederhorn gives this movie a more polished appearance, no doubt the result of the 18 gazillion dollars that the original "Friday" flick had pulled in the prior year ("Eyes of a Stranger" was released in 1981, while F13 graced us with its presence in 1980).

Apart from the surface differences, though, the tone is different. As opposed to "the Pepsi generation gets mutilated" (Sean Cunningham's words to describe "Friday"), this is a much more adult-friendly flick, a mid-30s heroine and some solid melodrama written in to the usual lean horror movie plot to go along with the teenage-focused horror movie staples of gratuitous nudity and elaborate death scenes. As a result, it may not be quite the horror movie lynchpin that "Friday the 13th" is, but it's almost as good, and certainly worthy of much more than the "in and out of theaters in two weeks" treatment it received back in 1981.

*** 1/2 out of ****, highly recommended for slasher movie fans like myself and midly recommended for film fans at large.