Excellent, a Must See

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

When I picked up the film,and I noticed on the sleeve mentions to the Friday the 13th series,it got me to expect that the film would be a fun, nasty slasher film. During my viewing of the movie,I was surprised to discover,that most of the film is actually a very efficient cat-and-mouse thriller. The plot:Over a period of a few weeks,Stanley Herbert-who seems to do his best to make sure that he stays a loner (so as not to raise any ones suspicions)starts to terrorise girls,who are also on there own.Herbert sets out tormenting the girls,by first of all ringing each of his victims up, to give them terrifying phone calls about how he is going to rape and murder them.After having gotten the girl to become a shivering wreak,Herbert waits until the girl is on her own,so that he can grab them,and then brutally rape and kill them.With signs that there might be a serial killer on the loose in the area,the local TV news station hears about this,and decides to make this there top stories.Although as the murder count increases,it seems that the police have no idea what is happening around them.This leads to the local news channel head reporter (who is also taking care of her blind and deaf sister,who in the past has been brutally raped.)to decide that she cant wait for the police to get round to properly investigating,and that she is going to investigate the murders herself.As the reporter starts to investigate around the area,she begins to notice that a neighbour of hers seems to be acting very strangely.. View on the film:Looking at the cast,I have to admit the I feel that John Disanti gives the most memorable performance in the film as the crazed serial killer Stanley Herbert.With his small-round specs (that should have become a horror trademark)Disanti is truly chilling as Herbert,who seems to enjoy calculating the best time to destroy his victims.In the final battle,Disanti shows that whilst most people would seem to be at a huge disadvantage with a gun pointed at them,he is able to make it feel that Herbert may actually be the one with the upper hand.With being the only one that seems to be after him,Lauren Tewes (making her film debut) gives a very good performance as news reporter Jane Harris,with Tewes giving the scenes where she is getting closer,and closer to realising the killer,a fantastic edge-of-your-seat intensity,with the risks that the character is taking.Also in her film debut with this film is Jennifer Jason Leigh as Janes sister Tracy.Even though Leigh plays someone who hardly speaks in the film,the last twenty minutes of the film,where Tracy and Stanley are battling against each other,are given a great sense of danger,by Leigh showing how strong-minded Tracy is about surviving being out of her comfort zone.Although the first half an hour of the film,has some very enjoyable hack"n" slash moments, (although I do have to admit,that I did smile a little when some one gets beheaded due to the sound effect sounding like someone was cutting through very smooth treacle!) the rest of the film turns into a much more gripping cat-and-mouse thriller,with sections of the film such as Jane being in the killers apartment which,although being a staple of the genre,is still strongly written and very gripping. From the first ten minutes of the film,the main thing that caught my eyes about the start of the great screenplay by Mark Jackson and Eric L. Bloom,were the phone calls that Herbert does .Which along with being very disturbing,they seem to have inspired the threatening phone call scenes in the first Scream film (especially the first ten minute section of the film.)Final view on the film:A gripping cat-and-mouse horror/thriller,with a great script and a fantastic creepy performance by Disanti.

Coming along when slasher flicks were enjoying popularity and when female newscasters in peril was also a common hook, this thriller failed to catch on when it was released (due in part, perhaps, to some censoring of the more graphic violence.) Tewes is a pretty news anchor living in a south Florida high-rise with her sister, the deaf-mute victim of a crime perpetrated against her as a young girl. While Tewes reports a series of deaths by serial killer on the air, she soon begins to suspect that her neighbor DiSanti is behind them! She has spotted him in bloodstained clothing and in a mud-splattered car following the discovery of a body in such a place. The audience is made aware early on that DiSanti is the deranged, sadistic killer (who, by day, appears like any pudgy, white-collar businessman), but watches as Tewes carries out a dangerous investigation of her own. Unfortunately, her rather sloppy approach to unmasking him turns his eye to her debilitated sister (Leigh) and she becomes the next girl on his list. Tewes enjoys playing something other than the bubbly and lightweight role she played on "The Love Boat" and generally does well in this far more serious role. DiSanti has few lines and is actually quite terrifying in his brawny, creepy way, never more so than when he presses his face up against one young lady's shower door! Leigh, in one of her earliest roles (and also one of her least grating), isn't given a great deal to do until the end, but performs admirably. Her encounter with DiSanti is memorably taunting. DuPre (sporting very dated glasses and hair) plays Tewes yuppie, ineffectual boyfriend. Lewis, Lunn and Crabtree play three of DiSanti's victims and their scenes provide varying degrees of suspense, with Lewis's probably taking the cake as the creepiest. Though there's never any doubt that it's not even close in quality, the film takes a few cues from Hitchcock's "Rear Window," even making DiSanti resemble that film's killer Raymond Burr. There are some genuine scares to be had here as DiSanti uses the telephone to taunt his early prey. This does turn unintentionally funny in Lunn's segment as he somehow manages to patch through to the emergency phone in the elevator! Other chuckles pop up when Tewes rolls around in her ghastly dark bedclothes with matching headboard and drapes and when she hangs from a balcony, eventually intruding upon an aged couple having their morning coffee. For what it is, it's an enjoyably tawdry little film with a few decent gore sequences and a creepy feel to it. At 85 minutes, it's also easy to digest and doesn't become oppressive to sit through.

Overweight ugly creep Stanley Herbert (John DiSanti) is attacking, raping and killing women all over Miami. Newscaster Jane Harris (Lauren Tewes) gets involved in it because her younger sister Tracy (Jennifer Jason Leigh) was rendered blind and mute by an attack as a little girl. Unknown to Jane, Herbert lives very close to her and Tracy may be his next victim...Trash. There are two rapes and beatings of women that are shown and they're just disgusting to see. Heck, the first one is within the first 15 minutes! DiSanti is a terrible actor (I couldn't figure out what exactly he was trying to do in a few scenes), the film has a boring script and becomes a chore to watch. Only a few things save this from being totally worthless. It has Leigh in her film debut and she's great. Surprisingly even Tewes was good in her role. Also director Ken Wiederhorn has some really nice suspenseful touches added to the film that make some of it fun to watch (especially when Tewes goes to DiSanti's apartment). So it's pretty terrible but not completely without merit. Also I caught the 2007 DVD which reinserts some of the gore that was cut for an R rating back in 1981. Obviously that's the one to get.

"Eyes Of A Stranger" is a slasher with a mean streak. Its killer is an overweight sleazeball rapist (John DiSanti) who is shot in plain view. The film is not a mystery, a whodunit, or a gore-fest. Director Ken Wiederhorn, who was responsible for the highly original and atmospheric "Shock Waves", has a solid style and creates some effective suspense sequences. Tom Savini handles the gore chores, and delivers a couple of grisly sequences including a knife thrust into a throat and a very authentic beheading (shot through a fish tank). The pacing slackens towards the end and the script offers no surprises. Lauren Tewes (from TV's "Love Boat") plays a TV presenter who learns that the killer is living in her apartment building. Her semi-blind sister (played by young and sexy Jennifer Jason Leigh), who is shown in flashback being abducted as a child, ends up being victimized by DiSanti in "Blind Terror" style. Warners released this film in the very early Eighties when cinemas were filled with knife-wielding psychos. For a dose of sleaze, this is worth catching.