THE KILLER EYE (1999)

 

DIRECTED BY David Decoteau 

SCREENPLAY BY Benjamin Carr

STARRING - Jacqueline Lovell as Rita Grady, Jonathan Norman as Dr. Jordan Grady,  Nanette Bianchi as Jane,  Costas Koromilas as Morton,  Blake Adams as Creepy Bill (as Blake Bailey),  Ryan Van Steenis as Japlo,  Dave Oren Ward as Tom, Roland Martinez as Joe

PLOT - Dr Jordan Grady is experimenting on human eyesight to try to give humans the ability to see into the mysterious eighth dimension.

As part of his experiment, he issues special eye drops into the eyes of a street kid named Japlo.

However, something goes wrong. The eye drops allow an entity from the eighth dimension to posses Japlo's eye. The eye grows to giant size (killing Japlo in the process).

Very soon the killer eye is on the prowl...and it wants to breed with the women of Earth.

PERFORMANCES - As you can probably guess by reading the plot synopsis this film is very much a sci-fi/horror B-movie, so in the spirit of this all the characters are completely OTT and two dimensional and the actor's performances are deliberately campy and heightened to reflect this.

A quick run down then. We've got Jonathan Norman as Dr Jordan Grady - he's pretty much the archetypal mad scientist who believes the ends justify the means in his quest for science - he's your basic Dr. Frankenstein type character.

Then we have Jacqueline Lovell as Grady's sex starved nymphomaniac wife Rita. Rita feels neglected by her husband's devotion to science so basically sleeps with any man she meets, including two permanently stoned muscle men - Joe and Tom (Roland Martinez and Dave Oren Ward) who seem to be more into each other than they are the gorgeous Rita (Martinez and Ward provide either the best or worst "stoned" acting you've ever seen depending on your viewpoint).

You've also got Costas Koromilas as Morton - Grady's wimpy employee, and Nanette Bianchi as his hot wife Jane.

Rounding out the cast is Blake Adams as the building's janitor - Creepy Bill, who isn't particularly creepy at all, he's just not as clean shaven as the other guys in the film. Finally there's Ryan Van Steenis as homeless street kid/human lab rat Japlo who dies within the first ten minutes of the film only to be resurrected as a zombified mouthpiece for the killer eye (which basically means he gets to recite most of his lines of dialogue in a dull monotone voice).

SEX & VIOLENCE - The Killer eye's main power seems to be hypnotising attractive women to the point of orgasm while it "impregnates" them, cue lots of scenes of Rita and Jane writhing around as they come their brains out.

Rita also gets a sex scene with the two camp stoner body builders.

The most graphic bit of violence is the Killer Eye bursting out of Japlo's eye socket. The rest of the time the eye zaps people with what appears to be a disintegration beam that it fires at people.

We later find out that the eye's victims aren't actually disintegrated but are instead merely teleported to the eye's home dimension, but I suppose "The Eye That Inconveniently Sends People To Another Dimension" hasn't got quite the same ring to it as a title as "The Killer Eye" does.

SFX - The Killer Eye itself is a really tacky looking creation (even by late 90's standards) but this all adds to high camp schlocky vibe of the film, personally I love it.

The lasers it fires look like something out of an early Playstation One game, as does the depiction of the Eighth Dimension that we see at the film's end - again, this all just adds to the goofy fun.

RATING - It's schlock but it's fun schlock (as you'd expect from Charles Band's Full Moon Features who made this film). I actually really enjoyed this, it's a lot better than it has any right to be.

4 sexually deviant mutant eyeballs out of 5. Great fun.

ART -