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Death has Blue Eyes
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| Year: |
1976
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Director: |
Nico Mastorakis
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| Stars: |
Jessica Dublin, Maria Aliferi, Peter Winter, Hristos Nomikos, Thom Arahovas, Maria Elise Eugene, Gerard Gonalons, Clay Half, Andrew Johnson, Louise Melinda, Bill Peyton, George Ranger, Danny Rochas, Maurice Rutherford, Philip Sherwood
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| Genre: |
Action, Thriller, Science Fiction |
| Rating: |
  6 (from 1 vote) |
| Review: |
Robert Kowalski (Peter Winter) is something of a scam artist, and to that end has stolen a wealthy passenger's ticket at the airport when he was in the gents', heading off to Greece and the sun and sea there. It starts off according to plan, as he meets with his friend Ches Gilford (Hristos Nomikos) in Athens, and they jump into the limousine that was awaiting the man who should have been there, escorted off to the hotel's restaurant and bluffing their way through ordering a meal. But they should have been more careful, as the room they claimed to be from is already occupied...
And as luck - or something else - would have it, those occupants are sitting at the next table. Bob goes over to explain himself to these ladies, a mother and daughter, Geraldine (Jessica Dublin) and Christine (Maria Aliferi), and they toy with him to watch him squirm, though Christine appears to be able to read his mind, or at least know when he is thinking the word "Shit!" You may say, it doesn't take a psychic to work that one out, but here's the thing: she is a genuine psychic, and Bob and Ches will cross paths with them again before the week is out, despite heading off to the holiday home of Ches's older lover.
This was the debut movie of Greek director and media tycoon Nico Mastorakis, though in effect it was released after the second movie he made, an unlovely though sunkissed video nasty called Island of Death which stole the thunder away from Death has Blue Eyes, a far more eccentric and enjoyable shaggy dog story, with the emphasis on the shagging. Really it saw the director throwing together all sorts of marketable elements from the nineteen-seventies, from the copious sex and nudity, lurid violence, paranormal theme, even a couple of car chases, it was all here for the seventies exploitation flick fan's wiling delectation.
Some would claim the results did not make much sense, but actually it was not that difficult to follow as long as you were on the picture's wacky wavelength. What it boiled down to was another obsession from this decade, a conspiracy thriller, where Christine's psychic powers are so impressive that they can not merely read minds, but also prevent Bob from completing his duties with an accommodating racing car driver (Maria Elise Eugene) who picked him up hitchhiking. This was the sort of movie that was intended to make us gasp twice when we saw that driver was a woman and a black woman at that, the expectations supposedly confounded, which they may well have been back then.
But Christine does more dangerous things than trigger performance anxiety, as another trick in her arsenal is to blow people up, somewhat similar to Drew Barrymore in Firestarter, and with authorities after her too. Our heroes, who seem to be harbouring some barely admitted attraction to each other that sees their skirt-chasing as an excuse to be naked in each other's company, become embroiled with said conspiracy, though it is only when all is revealed at the climax that we understand who was on who's side and for what. Yes, it was deeply silly, but it was all presented with a breezy, devil may care attitude, even when characters were, say, having their hearts stopped by ESP or tables were turned on lady assassins by making them strip (not before the boys have stripped, mind you - a kind of equality, one assumes). This made it a romp of the daftest order, yet as we see the leads learn a lesson in responsibility, one which was resourceful within its means. Music by Nikos Lavranos.
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| Reviewer: |
Graeme Clark
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