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Eyes Without a Face (re-release)

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Eyes Without a Face (re-release) reviews
88
9.5 User Score:

Movie Info

Genre(s): Foreign  |  Horror  |  Suspense/Thriller

Written by: Jean Redon (novel)
Thomas Narcejac (adaptation)
Pierre Boileau (adaptation)
Pierre Gascar (dialogue) and Claude Sautet

Directed by: Georges Franju

Release Date:
Theatrical: October 31, 2003
DVD: October 19, 2004

Running Time: 88 minutes, B/W

Origin: France / Italy

Summary

RATING: Not Rated

Starring Pierre Brasseur, Edith Scob, Alida Valli, François Guérin, Alexandre Rignault, Béatrice Altariba, Juliette Mayniel, and Claude Brasseur

In this classic 1959 horror film a father's love for his daughter becomes a nightmarish obsession, as the father, a plastic surgeon, sacrifices many innocent girls in his attempt to reconstruct his once-beautiful daughter's disfigured face.

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Disturbing, disorienting, quietly terrifying, it's one of the least known of the world's great horror movies and, in its own dark way, a startlingly beautiful and artful piece of cinema as well.

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90

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

As absurd and as beautiful as a fairy tale, this chilling, nocturnal black-and-white masterpiece was originally released in this country dubbed and under the title "The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus," but it's much too elegant to warrant the usual "psychotronic" treatment.

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90

Village Voice J. Hoberman

A masterpiece of poetic horror and tactful, tactile brutality.

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88

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Eyes Without a Face, outre as it is, never tires as hypnotic, touching, ghastly fun.

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88

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Franju constructs an elegant visual work; here is a horror movie in which the shrieks are not by the characters but by the images.

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80

TV Guide Staff (Not Credited)

A blood-curdling picture directed by Georges Franju at an even, distant pace that builds tension to an almost unbearable level.

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67

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Franju conjures images -- sometimes gory, sometimes poetic, sometimes fantastical -- that genuinely haunt: the essence of the cinema distilled.

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60

Variety Staff (Not Credited)

Director Georges Franju has given this some suspense and not spared any shock details. But the stilted acting, asides to explain characters and motivations, and a repetition of effects lose the initial impact.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 9.5 (out of 10) based on 2 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Yoon Min C. gave it a 9:
Perhaps the greatest work of Clinical Horror, possibly one of the influences on Cronenberg's Dead Ringers. Irksome and unsettling is that the unspeakable horror--murder and mutilation of the flesh--is carried out with cold, metallic precision by a doctor, a man of science. Yet, beneath that ratonal exterior burns the passionate, even tragic, dream to restore his daughter's face. The use of cold, sterile science upon the warm bleeding flesh illustrates the fear and ambivalence at the core of modernity, that of science's benefits and its utter ruthlessness; of the unstable barrier between reason and passion. As relevant to Nazi medical experiments to today's freemarket driven search for human perfection thru the surgical knife and genetic engineering.

Owen C. gave it a 10:
One of the eeriest films ever, period.

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