This week, Jessica Alba stars in The Eye, a spooky tale of a blind woman who gets surgery to restore her sight -- and ends up seeing lots of creepy stuff. Thus, we at Rotten Tomatoes thought it would be a great time to peep some classic movies and scenes devoted to the ol peepers.
The eyes are the first physical feature people notice on each other, but in the movies, they're probably the last. Unless you're Kubrick and partly base your artistic legacy on visual motifs of the organ, the eyes get lost in a medium that relies on dialogue and an actor's mannerisms and tics to tell the story. With this list, we set out to catalogue the movies that make the most of these windows into our souls, which spiraled into a compendium of eye-gouging. Enjoy! (And if you're having a snack, consider finishing up right now.)
Minority Report (91
percent on the Tomatometer)
Being a fugitive is hard in 2054, especially when your eyes
are being scanned at every corner. In a deliciously creepy scene, Officer John
Anderton (Tom Cruise) finds a black market surgeon (played by a very shady
Peter Stormare) willing to perform an eye transplant. There is a lovely
Clockwork Orange-esque eye clamp to make viewers squirm.
After the procedure, some seriously scary robot spiders crawl into the
apartment, and force Anderton to open his new eyes before they've had a chance
to heal. He wants to keep his old eyes, and later drops them and clumsily
chases after them as they roll towards the sewer, catching director
Steven
Spielberg in a rare moment of mordant humor.
Un Chien Andalou (100
percent)
Perhaps it was the Pixies who best described the essential
appeal of Un Chien Andalou in "Debaser":
"Got me a movie!
I want you to know!
Slicin' up eyeballs!
I want you to know!"
Luis Bunuel and
Salvador Dali's 1929 surrealist masterpiece
is much more than that of course; Un Chien Andalou is
probably the most famous and influential avant-garde film, a full-bore assault
on reason and convention. However, one of the primary reasons for its lasting
influence is its shocking, notorious opening scene, in which a man takes a
razorblade to a woman's eye. (If it makes you feel any better, a cow's eye was
used for the scene. And yes, the cow was dead.)
Kill Bill: Volume Two (85
percent)
The two volumes of Kill Bill demonstrate
the many ways that the human body can be beaten, sliced, diced, and skewered --
not to mention buried alive. However, eyesight damage is also a significant
risk in Quentin Tarantino's epic. Case in point: as Elle Driver,
Daryl Hannah
suffers not one, but two debilitating retinal injuries. The first is at the
hands of martial arts master Pai Mei (who Driver later poisons) leaving her
with a pretty awesome looking eye patch. And the second? We won't ruin it for you;
just watch the clip below (unless you're squeamish, of course).
Zombi 2 (33 percent)
Aside from that sublime scene of a zombie boxing a shark at
the bottom of the ocean,
Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2 is largely
remembered for one scene, occurring after the undead outbreak is in full swing.
An unlucky lady gets zombie ambushed and her head is grabbed and guided
sl-o-o-o-wly towards a protruding pointy stick. Rather graphic, profoundly campy,
and about as gut-wrenching as when
the evil security guard gets steamrolled in
Austin Powers.
Thriller: A
Cruel Picture
To get banned in the progressive stronghold of Sweden, it
takes only a movie of rampant misogyny, misanthropy, violence, vengeance
killings, hardcore sex, and cadaver misappropriation. Its clear influence on
Kill Bill spurred renewed interest in the movie, and
Thriller: A Cruel Picture (aka They Call Her One
Eye) has emerged as a hallmark of exploitation cinema, not only for
its extreme content but also director
Bo Arne
Vibenus's commitment to produce
compelling angles and shots amidst the carnage. An actual recently deceased
young woman was used for the film's literally eye-popping scene.
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THXTommy3000 writes: on Jan 30 2008 06:34 PM Um, Evil Dead 2: Dead Before Dawn??? How about chokin' on a flying eyeball?? Classic Raimi. (Reply to this) |
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SpikesInMySkull writes: on Jan 31 2008 05:06 AM Um... that Zombie vs. Shark and the eyeball impaled on a stick is in "Zombie" not "Zombi 2" For shame. (Reply to this) |
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fullmetalnek writes: on Jan 31 2008 07:05 AM The original name is Zombi 2, for it was sold as a sequel to Dawn of the Dead (named Zombi in Europe). (Reply to this) |
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smi1ey writes: on Jan 31 2008 10:12 AM that creature from pan's labrynth is on of the creepiest things i've ever seen in a movie. definitely would have given me nightmares as a kid haha. interesting how this alba movie hasn't been reviewed by anyone yet. (Reply to this) |
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Loserman writes: on Jan 31 2008 03:44 PM How about B. Luna's "Anguish"? A demented, failed optometrist carving out people's eyeballs... it's a classic! (Reply to this) |
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ronm writes: on Feb 01 2008 07:17 AM Not that you got to see it happen, but in "Manhunter" it creeped me out to see how the serial killer posed his victims, replacing their eyes with mirrors. But the creepest by far, probably cuz I saw it in the theater at the age of five, was Ray Milland as Dr. Xavier in "Man with the X-ray Eyes." My older brothers and I were seated in the front row. I remember running to the back of the theater to find my mommy during the opening credits when they showed a couple of eyes were bouncing around in a glass. I think it was in the closing scene when Milland plucks out his eyes. That too was pretty graphic for a five year old's sensibilities. I still have trouble watching when I think there's going to be damage done to someone%u2019s eye in movies or even during medical procedures. (Reply to this) |
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