Eyes of a Stranger

Year: 1980

Director: Ken Wiederhorn

Written by: Mark Jackson, Eric L. Bloom

Threat: Psychopath

Weapon of Choice: Belt

Based upon: Original

IMDb page: IMDb link

      Eyes of a Stranger

Other movies in this series:
None

The tyranist's thoughts
Featuring a young (18 at the most) Jennifer Jason Leigh, this is a pretty straightforward early '80s slasher that shows some of the freshness of slashers in that era. Unlike most of its contemporaries, the slasher in this one is a human psychopath and I have to give them full credit for making him as psycho as possible. He's very disturbing and has perhaps the best phone call scares to come along since Black Christmas. Actually, thinking about it now, they sounded exactly like I would expect a prankster to sound, which is perhaps what makes them all the more creepy.
So someone is killing young ladies. He calls them and then they end up dead. One talking head decides enough is enough and she starts to try to track him down on her own. Of course, she has more success than she should.
Leigh plays the blind and deaf sister, who lost sight and hearing in an incident involving a child molester. Curious. Of course, there's no permanent damage, the losses are purely psychological.
It started out pretty good and degenerated from there. Too much time spent in chase scenes and with the main character sneaking around the serial killer's apartment. I did like that the serial killer didn't stop once he got some attention. Often, these movies have the problem of a death at the beginning and then nothing till the last half hour. Not so here. It runs pretty much straight through.
Check it out if you want. There isn't anything really special about it, but I think early '80s slasher fans might enjoy it some.

Total Skulls: 19

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie skull
Future celebrity appears skull Jennifer Jason Leigh
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS skullskull
Girl unnecessarily gets naked skull
Wanton sex skull
Death associated with sex skull
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise skull
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene skull
Car stalls or won't start skull
Cat jumps out
Fake scare skull
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence skull
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness skull
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes skull
x years before/later
Flashback sequence skull
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead skull
Killer wears a mask skull
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim skull
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading skull
Blood fountain
Blood hits camera
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?