THE HEADLESS EYES (1971)
Article #1265 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-31-2004
Posting Date: 1-28-2005
Directed by Kent Bateman
Featuring Bo Brundin, Gordon Ramon, Kelley Swartz

An artist has an eye gouged out while trying to rob a girlfriend. He becomes an insane murderer who kills and gouges the eyes out of his victim’s heads.

Here are ten reasons not to bother with this movie.

1) The artists shrill, pained howl “My EYE!” gets repeated on the soundtrack about three hundred times during the length of the movie. (Yes, that is an exaggeration, but not by much.) Another thing I noticed is that….

2) …the mad artist keeps attacking the cameraman. Actually, I never saw this, but it’s the best explanation I can think of for the constant shakiness of the photography. Still, the shaky photography goes hand in hand with…

3) ..the sound, which is so bad that it’s hard to hear….

4) …the artist’s pretentious internal monologues, which together with the….

5) …arty attempts at surreal psychological sequences combined with the…

6)…annoying soundtrack which sounds like the instrumental sections of really bad psychedelic songs. This soundtrack drones on and on and on and on and on except in scenes where….

7)…the movie pretends it has a plot. We meet the artist’s girlfriend who wants to help him. We also meet a student artist who wants to learn from him. These scenes set up potential story arcs and then never pursues them. The reason for this is….

8)… that the movie is really about nothing but a psycho going around killing people. That’s it. Oh, they touch a little bit upon the policemen trying to track him down, but….

9)…the police haven’t a clue as to who it is or how to catch him, despite the fact that after he kills someone, he chatters constantly and loudly for all to hear while prying out their eyes. Oh, there’s one cop who’s clever enough to set a trap for him, but…

10) … this cop is stupid enough to try to take him alone in an isolated place and gives the artist ample opportunity to make a surprise attack on him.

In short, this one is pointless, pretentious, annoying, and no fun at all. Don’t bother.