The Killer Eye (1999)

THE KILLER EYE

WRITERS: Benjamin Carr, Matthew Jason Walsh, & Rolfe Kanefsky

DIRECTOR: Richard Chasen

STARRING: Jaqueline Lovell as Rita
    Jonathan Norman as Dr. Jordan Grady
    Nanette Bianchi as Jane
    Costas Koromilas as Morton
    Dave Oren Ward as Tom
    Blake Bailey as Creepy Bill
    Roland Martinez as Joe

QUICK CUT: After experimenting with interdimensional viewing, something escapes from the eighth dimension and wreaks havoc upon an apartment complex.  And all it wants is a little love.

THE MORGUE:
    Rita - Doctor Grady's wife, who sleeps more with two other guys than she does with him.  Heck, she sleeps more with an eyeball than her own husband.

    Dr. Jordan Grady - The mad scientist that thinks it's a great idea to use street kids to peer into a microtelescope to see if they can see the eighth dimension.  He's not really one for proper lab procedures and rules.

    Morton - Grady's lab assistant who does pretty much anything, including Rita at one point in the past.  Now he's happily married to Jane, although he's currently paying more attention to Grady's experiments.

    Jane - Morton's neglected wife, who loves her husband, but could do with some more attention.  She also spends more time with a certain eyeball.

    Tom and Joe - The two neighbours in the building that are Rita's special friends.  They apparently don't own any shirts, and will try any drug once.  They get lumped together because I can't keep either of them straight.

    Creepy Bill - The local weirdo in the building.  He has no personality beyond "Say weird things and babble".  He's just there for weirdness sake.  He's also probably shagged Rita.  Just because.

THE GUTS: We kick off this schlockfest on a dark and stormy night, in some loft apartment laboratory.  There's a scientist fiddling with the world's biggest microscope, and behind him is the douchiest looking victim.

I'm too sexy for this movie.

And from the gist of their conversation, he's a male prostitute.  The scientist is paying him for his time as part of an experiment, but the douche would rather screw.  Which would probably be safer and transmit fewer diseases, by the looks of this lab.

The scientist would rather just fuck with one of the kid's eyes, so puts a few drops into it, and waits for them to take effect.  Once they do, he'll have the kid look into the strange device in hopes of perceiving the eighth dimension.  Did you follow all that?

At that point, Grady's wife turns up, and the hooker gets a little distracted from his reason for being there.  I bet he's perceiving eight dimensions now.

Rita makes some comments about blinding the last subject, and the pair have a lover's spat about her paying for all the injuries her husband causes.  I guess back room labs being run off the books don't have good health care plans.

Douchey McHookerpants starts rubbing at his eye, and he better be careful.  They say that will make you go blind.  I guess he's finally tingling.  But while that's happening, the not so happy couple are too busy arguing, so Grady doesn't notice what's going on.

What he's missing is his prostitute collapsing on the ground of his lab, all while he argues with his wife about her orgasms.  He asks her if that's what she really wants to talk about at this important moment, and frankly I'd rather hear about that myself.

The gigolo does what he's good at back in the lab, moaning and groaning, as we focus on his shadow, watching some thing growing out of his skull.

The winner of the world's largest bubble blowing contest!

We then see him laying on the ground, with a tendril slinking away.  The camera pans up to show a giant, human sized eyeball um...what I presume is standing over the body.

The giant eyeball looks at charts of the male and female reproductive system, and I can't believe that is a sentence that has now been typed up.

Doc finally returns and checks his equipment, failing to notice the missing test subject until he turns around and sees the body on the ground.  He then stands there and stares dramatically into the distance as the opening credits get underway.

The staring contest begins.

Meanwhile, in another apartment, two shirtless guidos are busy popping pills and Skittles from a plate.  Seriously, it looks more like a plate of candy than stuff that would make you anything other than sugar high.

Rita pays the guys a visit, and this must be the neighbours her husband sent her to so she could cool off.  He said they always make her feel better, and I could wager a guess how.  And surprise!  I nailed it.  And so did they.

Another meanwhile, in yet another apartment, we meet another couple, Jane and Morton, the latter of which works for the doctor.  They can hear the guys and Rita going at it...so this is all in the same building.  Must be a very close knit business.  Do the guys work there solely to keep Rita calm?

But just as Morton's about to get away with his wife, Grady shows up and demands his assistant's help.  Trying to find a giant eyeball is not the work of one man.

Up in the lab, Grady wants to move the body, and Morton is a little more than shocked by the corpse.  The doctor tries to brush it aside by saying it's just something he borrowed from the hospital.  Right, and left in the middle of the floor, rather than put someplace sensible.

While Rita and the guys go at it, the eyeball watches...because what else is it gonna do, right?  The thing goes unnoticed for the time being, what with the guys being high, and Rita being...occupied.

Don't blink.

After what must be five minutes of this guy squriming all over Rita, he finally declares he's tapped.  And so am I.  This is way too much sex and not enough killing.  We're about a quarter into the movie, and there ain't nothing really dead yet.  We get it, the eyeball is watching them.  Now get on with it!

Because sex isn't interesting enough, the movie jumps back to the lab where Grady tells Morton that he has had a breakthrough with his experiments.  I may actually rather go back to the sex than technobabble and the eighth dimension.  Borderline porn should not have technobabble.

Morton asks about how the test subject is doing, while standing over his body, and he finally puts two and two together.  Grady at least explains it as accidents happening and, well...he has a point?  He didn't cacklingly kill the guy, he didn't know his eyeball would make a break for it.

And all of a sudden a guy leaps out of nowhere to join in on the conversation.  This whole building is just filled with wacky characters!  They should start a sitcome here.  Me, Myself, and Eye.

They brush Creepy Bill off, and that was an annoying interlude that added nothing.  As long as he dies, at least it had a point, but right now, it was just wacky to be wacky.

I don't like how the X-Men movies have re-envisioned Cyclops.

Back with the Mario Brothers, the eyeball is standing over their bed, and I would have been SO pissed if it killed the trio of them off screen while we were meeting Creepy Bill in the attic.  Fortunately, the eye is just shoving a tendril under the blankets to screw Rita.  I guess he figured it was his turn.

We're treated to another couple minutes of sex.  And by that, I mean we get to watch Rita writhe under the covers while the occular nerve rape is more than implied.  Still, technically sex, just with a puppet.

One of the Mario Brothers wake up and see the eye standing there, but before he can do anything, he gets zapped in the eyes with green lasers.  Ok, I can roll with a giant eyeball, even one that shoots lasers from its iris.

But how does one eye shoot twin beams?

And then it's back to a few more minutes of the sex.  And we get to see another tendril playing with Rita's breasts.  What is seen cannot be unseen.

The other guy wakes up and screams, chasing off the eyeball.  Why he didn't get zapped, I don't know.  And Rita just thinks he's high.  Okay, he IS, but he also saw a giant eyeball.  You would think the gigantic open air vent that would make John MacLaine envious would be a tip off of something, but it goes ignored.

But let's get back to the technobabble!  Grady explains to Morton that the eyedrops and the apparatus actually punctured a hole through reality because the dimensional spacetime curve is no longer right around the device.  You know, this is the most science bullshit I've seen in a long time, and you can't even argue with it.  Eyedrops punctured a hole in reality?  If you say so!

Grady is aware that something came through, because he actually has devices that can sense "oddball biofeedback".  Right.  Good thing he has just the right BS science to track his other BS science.

Morton gets sent out to check the apartments for the creature, and Grady reassures him that whatever came through can't be any larger than the eyepiece it came through.  Yeah, unless it grew, Doc.

Jane's still pissed that her husband is too busy looking for an eyeball, and working out on the treadmill to calm herself down.  She falls to notice exactly what her husband is looking for standing right behind her.  Which is at least understandable, unlike so many other lurking creatures and nailgunners.

Look behind you.

She finishes her workout and goes to take a shower.  And just as things are about to get interesting with her and the eyeball, it's back to Rita and her friends.  Who have actually stopped being interesting now.

Morton busts in with a cheap knockoff of the Ghostbusters PKE meter, searching for the eighth dimensional lifeform.  He cracks a few jokes about the fuck buddies while he searches.  Typical, everyone knows but the smart scientist.

Rita is still needy and tries hitting on Morton, but he's faithful to his wife.  Even if he does have more time for Doctor Grady than Jane, most of the time.

These cheap skank readings are off the scale!

Fortunately, we get back to the meat of the plot with the eyeball continuing to watch.  Jane finally notices the creature and gets zapped for it.  She ends up standing there as the monster strokes her naked body.

I actually welcome the cut back to Morton and his search at this point.  Tentacle sex makes me cringe.

Unfortunately, once Morton's machine starts to go Ping! it's back to his wife and the monster, and several minutes of fondling the tentacle.  I'm glad any actual sex with the thing is implied and not shown.  Although there is a bizarre shot where it pulls back and she's holding one tendril, and we don't see another one...well, where you might expect there to be one, let's say.

For some reason, the machine is getting readings off of the guy who got eyezapped, and also for some reason, this makes the creature scurry away from Morton's wife.  Did it sense it was being noticed, residually?  Elsewhere?  I got nothin'.

Doctor Grady has been keeping himself busy in the lab crunching the data, and Creepy Bill shows up to talk about the dead body in the crate.

This guy is still annoying in a wacky way, just to be weird.  And he sounds like Billy Bob Thornton from Sling Blade, which isn't helping my dislike of him.

I like me some mashed potaters, but without the eyes.

Jane's done with her shower, and the eyeball is still there, using its all purpose green-o-vision to turn on the radio to a nice, light FM to get her in the mood.  Because it's mind control wasn't good enough?  And she of course mistakes it for her husband, who must only have one, really long finger for her to make that mistake as the creature fondles her.

Rita is STILL with the Marios, and ready for more fun.  She's had unfufilling sex with them, slept, got dressed, was about to leave, and wants more.  It's like they had the set and decided to film tons of scenes to try and edit them together coherently later.  Guess what?  They failed.

Sigh.  More long, drawn out scenes with the eye's tendrils fondling a woman.  For a 72 minute movie, there sure is a crapload of padding.

And then you shall become the Emerald Empress and we shall rule the galaxy!

Which is when Morton walks in.  So, all his searching, and he stumbles upon the eye, with his wife.  And she's suitably surprised, considering she thought her husband was already there.

Jane turns around and gets zapped, and so does Morton.  Jane falls unconscious, and Morton falls under the creature's control.  These are the Swiss Army knives of eyebeams, people.

Morton undresses his wife, and plays with himself while...that's right!  Nearly four more minutes of silent tentacle fondling!  I'd almost rather take rock climbing at this point.  It screeches to a halt when the flailing in pleasure Morton knocks over a lamp and spooks the eye.  Wait, how does it hear?

Creepy Bill tries blackmailing the doctor with his knowledge of the dead kid in the crate, and the doctor gets ready to add another body to the box.

DO IT!

Or maybe it's not blackmail.  He just wants to know what's going on, and gets upset at the suggestion he'll tell other people about what he saw.  And the point of that was...?

He promises not to tell anyone...until Rita comes in and asks where the kid is.  So Creepy Bill tells her he's in the attic.  Yep, he won't tell a soul.  Oh, and while this is going on, the creature has run up to the attic and is sucking on the kid's brain.

Rita heads up to the attic and the dead kid is apparently only mostly dead, as he sproings up from the crate like a jack in the box.  Granted, he's probably just being possessed by his own mutated eighth dimensional eyeball.

And it takes her all of five seconds to hit on the guy.  Like she needs more sex.

Now that the creature has a full body, he can actually speak, barely.  It's bad acting, by a first time actor, and at least they were smart in that casting, since it's an alien eyeball trying to speak.  Oh, and it tells Rita it needs to make more.  Which doesn't phase her at all, she just wants the sex.

Doc and Creepy Bill show up to ruin her fun though, and they just so happen to have flashlights.  No one has come to the attic with any before, Rita doesn't have one, and it's well lit, so the only reason they have them is to freak out the Eyeman.  And they're both surprised to see the kid isn't dead.

Grady tries to explain the kid being alive, but is totally missing that he has both eyes now.  So, not the most observant scientist.

And in a moment of defying conventions, Creepy Bill actually points out the, "giant sonuvabitchin' floatin' eyeball" that no one else is noticing.  Which makes Rita spin around and get zapped.

Morton shows up to warn everyone not to look it in the eye, and there's a weak shot of the creature half-assedly zapping the doc in the background.  It looks like trying to make something out of some bad footage where the actor moved awkwardly than the eye actually blasting him.

Once the light scares it off into the vents again, they try and figure out how to kill it.  Grady doesn't know, since it's clearly an eighth dimensional creature.  Clearly!  He figures he must have opened up a dimensional wall in reverse, and something crawled up into the kid's eyeball.  Creepy Bill is the only one this makes any sense to.

Rita has had enough and is ready to leave, but her loving husband reminds her she's an accessory so they better deal with this on their own so no one gets caught.  And no one steals credit for his discovery.

Ladies and gentlemen, your heroes.

They figure out, somehow, that the creature is a hermaphrodite and can reproduce like an ameoba, which begs the question why it doesn't just split itself up and do that, rather than the torturous scenes of fondling.  And at least the movie asks the question, but it does not provide an answer.

Grady says that maybe only a small part came through, the male part, and um, I don't think it works that way.  Besides, it's not the size that counts.

They figure that since it's possessed an eye, it must be hurt by the light, since it is bound by the limitations of an eye.  Hey, you want to know about a particular limitation of eyes.  They can't have sex!

Oh, and since eyes need to be moist to function, hot lights also dry it out.  Ok, so maybe it's just looking to stay moist inside women?

So, while the bad science brigade chat, the eyeball returns to the Mario Brothers while they continue to be baked, and watch a movie.  Which may or may not be There's Nothing Out There.

Whatever you do, don't blink

It zaps one and takes him over, babbling about needing more females.  So no major change to this guy's personality.  If anything, he's probably thinking more clearly.  Anyways, he goes off in search of Rita once he figures out that the girl on the tv isn't real.  Although I would've given the movie bonus points if it had him try and hump the tv.

Joe shows up to the lynch mob, and because they're all clueless, Morton gives the eyeball the keys to his apartment and orders to look after Jane.  Oh, he'll look after her, all right.

The eyeball tries to have it's way with Jane, but she sees the thing standing there.  Her screams bring everyone running, and the monster runs off and hides again.  It keeps ducking into what I presume is the bathroom.  How far can it get?

So yeah, Joe is dead, and that's the first thing the eyeball has actually, actively killed.  56 minutes into the movie.  I don't quite count the kid, since that was more the victim of birth pangs, but yeah.  Not a very killer eye, huh?

They decide to try and get out of there, but the power gets knocked out.  Jordan goes to fix the breaker, and tells the others to get going.  The lights are off for a whole two minutes.  That was a pointless diversion.

The group plot on trapping the eyeball in a circle of light until it's dried up, and that's when Jordan returns after meeting the eye.  If he's possessed, the eyeball has gotten a lot better at English, as he's using full sentences, and big words like cross dimensional.

Maybe-Grady has a plan to blow the creature up and take a few city blocks with it, and use his wife as bait.  Yeah, she's probably the best bet, between her and Jane.

He takes his wife upstairs to meet the eyeball face to eye, and leaves the others to wait until they're done.  The eye must be tired of interuptions.

Rita uses this time to confess her indiscretions to her husband, and tell him she wants to get a divorce.  He passionately kisses her, and it's probably the most passion he's shown her in years.  All it took was possession by an eighth dimensional eyeball.  Maybe these crazy kids will be ok.

Turns out that Jordan isn't quite possessed though, just understanding.  The creature somehow asked him for help, and he agreed to fetch his wife for it.

What're you lookin' at?

I'd say it's an ok plan, everyone gets what they want, but then Jordan tells us that the eye is an advance scout for an invasion.  And he seems ok with it, because he'll learn how to open a portal, and get the recognition he's always wanted.  Who will still be alive to recognise his achievements?

Creepy Bill finds another cross dimensional bomb, and everyone points out that it's just a stopwatch.  They figure out from that, that Jordan's entire story was bullshit.  No one noticed that Grady was swinging around a stopwatch before?  It wasn't that hard to see.  I could tell, and I'm watching from a wide master shot.

They rush to the attic, interrupt the global domination plotting, and Grady actually shouts, "Curses!" without any sense of irony.

Joe's friend rushes the eyeball to punch it and give it a black itself, or something, but once again the green eyebeams of doom are zapped about.  This time, it turns the guy into a lens flare and makes him go away.  Why didn't the eyeball do that 40 minutes ago?

They flash the lights at it and send it back into the vents, saying not to let it get away.  Well gee, that's kinda what it's doing.  They chase it back to the lab where it zaps Morton harmlessly, and sends Creepy Bill away in another lens flare.  Yay!

I'm interfaaaaced!

Rita turns on a big light, and it just stands there as Morton tells it that it is going to die unless it returns to its own dimension.  Why doesn't it just back up?  Go back to the vents?  It's not like the light is widespread, or multiple sources.  It's a light on the wall.  In the same direction the other lights where that it avoided before.

It starts to zap the eighth dimensionscope, and Jordan runs in.  He wants to go with the creature, and runs in sudden slow motion, leaping onto the device.  Rather than knocking it over or being impaled, he zaps away somewhere.

The portal opens, and the creature goes home, giving us a glimpse into the eighth dimension as it goes.

It's the Illuminateye!

Before the movie can be put out of its misery, Rita asks where Jordan is, because I guess his request wasn't clear enough.  Morton adds insult to injury by daring to quote Star Trek and say he's boldly gone where no man has gone before.  Don't.  Don't do that.

Jane is relieved it's all over, and so am I...until her and Rita both clutch their stomachs in writhing pain.  Convenient simultaneous labour pains.  Nice.

The end credits at least give every actor a nice image with their credit.  I always like it when movies do that.

AUTOPSY REPORT

Video: It ain't great, but it's better than some newer movies I've seen.  Could be sharper, could be less grainy, but passable.

Audio: A fair stereo mix.  A 5.1 mix would've been fun with the scurrying eyeball, but oh well.

Best Line: "It sure is horny for an eyeball."  Creepy Bill makes a most astute observation.

First Blood: 5:30 minutes in when the eyeball tears itself out of the street kid's head, and then it's a long 50 minutes until anyone else bites it.

Best Kill: Sadly, that goes to the street kid.  Everyone just disappears in a puff of pixels and a lens flare.  Bleh.

Blood Type - F+: Very little blood.  The most blood is on the street kid's eye socket, and everyone else dies in CGI.  Bleh.

Sex Appeal: There's more bare breasts in this movie than a maternity ward.  Tom and Joe also wander the movie shirtless the entire time, for the ladies.

Movie Rating: The movie has three writers.  Need I say more?  And yet, there is almost no plot.  A good half of the movie is lengthy sex and fondling.  This is borderline porn, with a few scenes of a monster eyeball.  How could three writers taken so long to do so little?  It's only 72 minutes long, and the movie goes nowhere.  Bad acting, bad story, poorly shot with poor lighting.  This is a classic example of a cheap, quick movie.  And the implied tentacle rape makes me flail.  One out of five street kids.

Entertainment Value: Well, depending on what you're looking for...  If you want a good monster movie?  No.  Softcore porn?  Well, you might get a little something here.  But then there's too much technobabble to interupt your enjoyment.  It's hard to believe this movie has There's Something Out There's Rolfe Kanefsky attached to it.  Well, aside from having an alien creature, rampant sex, and green eyebeams.  I guess I can believe it.  Anyways, there is more entertainment here than actual movie value.  It's kinda fun, and campy, but it's being pulled in too many directions to be fulfilling in any of them.  Three out of five goes at Rita.

Tentacle rape and technobabble in the same movie.  Whoda thunk?