Movie Review: The Eyes Behind the Stars

This Sci-Fi Invasion box set challenge is getting tougher by the moment. Four movies in and I kind of want to claw my eyes out, or at least take a nap. It is times like this where my enjoyment of B-cinema is seriously tested. This movie is called The Eyes Behind the Stars and it is a really good cure for insomnia, taking a couple of attempts to make through to the end. My first attempt ended with about a half hour to go when I thought I blinked and found myself staring at the disk's main menu, wondering what happened.



The movie is an Italian production, something you would think would be a plus. It's not. It is really just a long, boring episode of The X-Files. I am very often a fan of Italian genre fare from the late 1970's (this one is from 1978), but his one just drags, and drags, and drags some more. It is a movie constantly spinning it's wheels and never offering anything of interest. I suppose there is a reason it is included in a set like this rather than a release on its own.

The movie opens with a man and a woman doing a photo shoot in a park. She spins, twirls, and looks at the camera while he snaps pictures left and right. At one point they feel like they are being watched, they continue on a bit longer before leaving. As he develops the photos, he notices something strange, a few of the pictures have aliens in the background.

Our intrepid photographer goes back to the park, flashes his camera around, and ends up abducted. The aliens all walk slowly and are dressed in gray and black with visors in front of their faces. The model learns of the photographers suspicions and hires a reporter to investigate.

The remainder of the movie is people talking, reports, police, some secret group called The Silencers (whose goal is to cover up alien evidence). Some people die, others get kidnapped, blah, blah, blah. It all goes nowhere and does nothing. When the end comes, and does mercifully, the heroes are dead, the alien ship takes off and the credits role. Nothing learned, nothing gained, and the Silencers have won.

I was hoping for something at least moderately entertaining, but I am always hoping for that. The Eyes Beyond the Stars is one of the most boring films I have ever seen, right up there with Jean Rollin's Oasis of the Zombies.

I know I did not really tell you all that much about this movie, but there really isn't a lot to say. It was written and directed by Mario Gariazzo using the Americanized name Roy Garrett, a name that is accompanied onscreen by a note saying he is a member of the National Investigation Committee in Aerial Phenomena (N.I.C.A.P.) and Field Investigator of Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (A.P.R.O.). This ties into the closing screen crawl asserting that parts of this story are true. Seems like they. Put more effort in he wrap around effort to create real world believability than in the story itself.

If I had to say anything nice about the movie, it is that the music is oftentimes pretty groovy (although there were other moments I wanted to stick sharp objects in my ears). It was composed by Marcello Giombini, he also scored Anthropophagus and Sexy Nights of the Living Dead for Joe D'Amato.

Not Recommended.