GamerTab That was an excellent one.

BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Cujo108 Taking place during the early colonization of America, "Eyes of Fire" is a remarkable hybrid of horror and mysticism within a western setting. Will Smythe (Dennis Lipscomb) is a hypocritical, but charismatic preacher who is relatively new to the small settlement of Dalton's Ferry. Traveling with him is Leah, an odd girl, who seemingly possesses otherworldly powers. Her mother, suspected of being a witch, was burned alive. While residing in the settlement, Smythe beds a bevy of women, among them the wife of Marion Dalton (Guy Boyd), a trapper spending most of his time away from home. The townsfolk disapprove of Smythe's extracurricular activities and attempt to hang him, but he's rescued by both Leah and a small group of the settlers who see something in the man. They flee the township, hoping to find their own personal "promised land" in which to settle down. Eventually forced into a valley by marauding Indians, Smythe promptly declares it to be the sanctuary they've been seeking. As they begin to start a new life, little do they know that this place is already inhabited by a devil witch and her ghastly minions.Filmed in the wilds of Missouri, Avery Crounse's wondrously offbeat gem is one of the most beautifully photographed horror films of the 80's, American or otherwise. The dense woodlands are naturally pleasing to the eye, but they become something else entirely when seen through the stunning direction of Crounse. His style combines the contemplative visual poetry of a Terrence Malick with truly nightmarish imagery and acidic color fades. He makes sure that, while lovely in appearance, these woods are deeply foreboding. There's an eeriness in the air, one that never quite goes away. Brad Fiedel's score adds to the unease of the situation and gives off an otherworldly vibe to match.In spite of a low budget, the period setting feels authentic. You never once believe that these people aren't living in the colonial era. What a fascinating period that was, and I feel that more horror films should be set in and around that time. The all-encompassing isolation, the lack of modern weapons or technology and the endless amount of rich history are all elements which are positively ripe for tales of the macabre. Most of all, though, there are the superstitions and folklore which were so rampant back in those days. This continent was still a relatively unknown place then, none of the settlers really having a clue as to what they might encounter. I don't think there is anything more terrifying than the unknown, so what better time than the days of the unknown to tell a story of this nature? Crounse certainly realizes this, as he milks the period setting and the olden days mythology for all that they're worth.I've seen many reviews deriding the special effects, which is absurd. They are not only perfectly believable, but quite well-done at that. The hideous look of the devil witch herself and the surprisingly numerous explosions were especially impressive. On the acting front, Lipscomb plays slimy as if it were second nature to him. Boyd is strong in the role of foil, while Kathleen Crockett steals the show as Leah, a character that could have fallen into camp if not played correctly."Eyes of Fire" is right up there with "Black Rainbow" as one of the unsung genre classics of the 80's. It's a one-of-a-kind experience in desperate need of a proper release, one which preferably restores the original "Cry Blue Sky" cut, an ultimate holy grail for me, and allows the film's brilliant photography to shine through to it's fullest extent. The work of a true visionary, gems like this one shouldn't be forgotten.

rixrex This is a wonderful find for any horror film buff who can appreciate the slow-build of the typical "giallo" film, to which it compares stylistically, with a good dose of Gothic influence. Rather than load all of the budget toward the effects and skimp everywhere else, the film-makers opted to use the relatively unknown and overlooked talents of the best low-budget effects and pyrotechnics person in the business, Tassilo Baur. (I personally witnessed him put together special effects on a USC student film in 1981, on a budget of about $100 that looked like thousands. If you look carefully at the effects here, you'll see how well-realized they are for such little money.) Anyway, the effort in this gem was well-placed in the story, the direction and the acting. Overall good production values make this look as good as most studio stuff, and it's much more thoughtful. Great eerie locations and soundtrack add to the atmosphere. Fans of horror films that offer more than violence only for the sake of violence will appreciate this find. Recommended!

Sturgeon54 Frankly, I was expecting a much more engrossing film from the almost unanimously positive word-of-mouth I had read about this on the internet. For a truly original idea - an exploration of dark early American frontier mythology - this movie failed due to one overriding problem: a lack of story focus. It is a shame, because director Avery Crounse, whose work I was unfamiliar with before seeing this, displays a visual talent on par with such macabre masters as Roman Polansky and Alejandro Jodorowsky. This movie contains one striking, horrifying image after another. Unfortunately, these images don't add up to a strong film because most of them make no sense in connection to the storyline. The basic barebones that I picked up on the plot is that a preacher, aided by the mysterious witch-like powers of his teenage daughter, steals from a local town and heads off on the river with his mistress and some others to the "promised land" where he can form a new Christian society. However, once they arrive in an abandoned Indian encampment in the deserted woods, they fall prey to some forest witches or ghosts.It is at this point that the story completely confused me. There never is a good explanation for all of the bizarre supernatural events in the woods, and especially the connection they have with the preacher's daughter, who seems to only speak in some archaic tongue. The supernatural imagery is riveting, but it was not enough to keep me interested. Because I really could not care less about any of these numbskull Puritans, watching the movie became an additional chore. I'll be honest: I hated reading "The Scarlet Letter" in high school, and watching this movie, with its laughable Puritanical superstitions, reminded me of slogging through that book. I would watch this again if I thought I could gain from a repeat viewing, but unfortunately I strongly doubt that I would.

Clint Walker Some movies haunt me for long after I see them. In the case of Eyes of Fire, this isn't because the movie is all that hot, but because I haven't been able to get the darn thing out of my brain since I saw it.Plot: It's been a while, but right off the top of my head, Eyes of Fire is set during days of early American life. A "wicked" polygamist dude is kicked out of his village for his ways, so he packs up his stuff, and leaves town, taking his flock of naive followers with him.He promises to find them a new place to live where they can all start a new society of sorts where they can live their lives the way they want to. But he ignores his Native American tourguide, and chooses to set up shop in a spooky, foreboding area of the woods which is supposedly cursed by evil spirits.After that, I can't really remember too much about the plot, other than that it dissolves into nothingness, and in its place we get quite a bit nightmarish images of ghosts, slime, and spectral zap rays, all backed with a lot of screaming.I tend to remain fascinated with movies that seem to exist in their own world of reality, where our rules of logic don't always apply. If the world of movies were a giant city, these films would be brief snapshots of dangerous streets you don't want to drive down. These don't always have to be horror movies; Over the years I can think of several examples of these kind of films; Gummo, Elephant, The Toolbox Murders (the 70's one), and Impulse (the meg tilly one) all come to mind off hand. These movies all have a worldview that depressed me enough that I just cant shake the characters and their environment afterwards.Eyes of Fire is like that, really. I don't recall one character, actor, or line of dialog. Nor am I really sure I've got the story down right. But the memory of being totally freaked out by it has stuck with me ever since.