Reviews
Other
EYES OF FIRE
This Missouri lensed no-budgeter from the eighties is real oddity: a hallucinatory horror movie set in Colonial America. EYES OF FIRE is definitely one of the most unique American genre films of the decade, but the problem is that it just isn’t all that good. If valiant intentions were enough to guarantee success than this film would be a classic, but they’re not and it isn’t.
The Package
I’ve been able to uncover little information about this strange little
film’s production or distribution, outside its 1987 VHS release on Vestron Video
(now out of print, with no DVD release in sight), which featured several
critical raves (“A bizarrely fascinating story”, “A spook movie with a
difference”).
The film’s writer-director Avery Crounse and his
company Elysian Pictures would go on to make the better-left-unmentioned 1987
teen comedy THE INVISIBLE KID and 1993 straight-to-video drama CRIES OF SILENCE.
The Story
Sometime during the late 1700’s a desperate band of Western settlers find
themselves on a raft, sailing into uncharted regions of “New France.” Among
their charges is a red headed Irish stowaway. It’s clear from early on that
this young woman has magical powers, as she somehow creates a force field that
repels arrows shot by Indians.
The settlers decide to set up a camp in a dense,
uncharted forest. A bad idea, as the area is haunted; a stone tablet made by
earlier settlers warns “The Devil is in the Trees.” It may not actually
be the Devil, but something is definitely afoot, as demonstrated by the
human faces visible in many of the trees, as well as the faceless
mud-covered weirdies who rampage through the camp each night, inspiring the men
to build a large barricade out of woodblocks. Not that this stops whatever evil
force is loose, as a mysterious little girl shows up one day outside the camp.
The men unwisely interpret the girl’s appearance as a “gift” from the nearby
Indians, but the Irish gal knows better.
Before long the little girl is making trouble, and freaky nightmares
involving people’s souls trapped in trees are afflicting the settlers. The girl
tries to lure the children of the settlement away, presumably to become tree
people, but the elders eject her from the camp.
With so much weirdness going on around them the settlers understandably
elect to leave. Around the same time the Irish redhead goes off by herself to
do battle with the tree spirits. Without giving anything away, I will reveal
that the two events collide. How? Well, I wouldn’t want to spoil anything for
prospective viewers, and anyway I’m not entirely sure.
The Direction
This film is a failure, but an interesting one. It’s impeccably designed
and photographed, with an artfully constructed atmosphere of primal dread that
favorably recalls CARNIVAL OF SOULS. With so much skill on display it’s
inevitable that some genuinely effective moments shine through here and there:
the initial appearances of the ghostly tree people that menace the protagonists
are appropriately eerie and disturbing...at least until the goofy make-up
effects become apparent. Its here that the movie’s central problem lies:
writer-director Avery Crounse’s intent is simply too ambitious for his paltry
budget. The film might have worked better if Crouse had embraced the rapid-fire
insanity that tends to characterize genre fare from Asia (check out the mind
roasting Filipino flick THE KILLING OF SATAN for what EYES OF FIRE might have
been); as it is, though, Crounse’s relentlessly solemn, humorless tone doesn’t
jibe too well with the tacky lightning effects and low rent monster make-up he’s
stuck with.
Not that this film’s problems are confined to the budgetary arena. The
characters, outside the supernaturally endowed Irish girl, barely register, a
problem due largely to an overemphasis on atmosphere, which often makes the film
a chore to watch. Quite simply, EYES OF FIRE repels rather than compels
attention. It’s an intriguing piece of work, but unfortunately that’s all
it is.
Vital Statistics
EYES OF FIRE
Elysian Pictures
Director: Avery Crounse
Producer: Philip Spinelli
Screenplay: Avery Crounse
Cinematography: Wade Hanks, Don Devine
Editing: Michael Barnard
Cast: Dennis Lipscomb, Rebecca Stanley, Sally Klein, Fran Ryan, Rob Paulsen,
Kerry Sherman, Will Hare, Ivy Bethune, John Miranda, Karlene Crockett, Guy Boyd