Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Austin Jennings
Starring: Emily Sweet, Bruno Veljanovski, Bradford Thomas
Were it not for the atrocities committed under their flag in the not so
distant past, you might feel sorry for how Serbians have been so
negatively portrayed in western media. Serbian filmmakers haven't
exactly done much to dissuade such stereotypes, mind you. After all, the
most famous movie to come out of the country is the notorious
A Serbian Film, hardly a favourite of the nation's tourist board.
Eight Eyes is another American film filled with negative
stereotypes of Serbians, but it's actually shot in Serbia with a local
crew. And it does allow Serbia to stick up for itself in the face of
ill-informed western scorn, slyly commenting on how Americans have a
ghoulish fascination with taking their vacations in countries they were
dropping bombs on not so long ago.
On the surface, Eight Eyes could easily be lumped in with
the wave of 2000s era horror movies in which innocent Americans were
terrorised by sadistic slavs in the less scenic corners of Eastern
Europe. It's often surmised that those movies, which gained the
collective label of "torture porn", were a reaction to the apprehension
Americans felt about so many of their young people being sent to fight
in the Middle East, just as movies like
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre gained popularity during the
Vietnam war. It's telling that despite America being the invading
aggressor in both cases, in the cinematic allegories for the conflicts
it was the locals who were portrayed as the savages.
The innocent Americans here are Cass (Emily Sweet) and Gav (Bradford Thomas), a young couple whose marriage seems to be on the rocks. Presumably
in an attempt to refresh their relationship, they've taken a trip to
Serbia, where Cass explores her spontaneity by crashing a local wedding.
The following morning they meet a genuine guest of the wedding, a local
young man who likes to go by the moniker of "Saint Peter" (Bruno Veljanovski). The loud and boorish Peter immediately repels Cass but Gav finds him
oddly charming. Peter insists on taking the pair to a remote village to
visit a bombed out former factory. Cass, who has clearly seen enough
movies of this ilk to know where this is headed, initially protests but
is guilt-tripped by Gav into going along.
Director Austin Jennings and co-writer Matthew Frink play
around with our expectations of such a premise, and they ask us to
question our prejudices. Saint Peter's glass eye gives him a sinister
look, but isn't that simply ableism on our part? He's coarse and vulgar,
but maybe that's just his culture? When he gets angry at Cass and Gav
for not paying attention as he tells the story of how his village was
bombed, isn't his irritation justified at their lack of respect? Cass
and Gav represent the two sides of the American cultural divide, the
former viewing anything alien with suspicion, the latter finding
anything foreign condescendingly quaint and exotic.
But as this is a movie that has been debuting at horror festivals we
know where it's going, so it's no surprise when things take a dark and
violent turn in the second half. It's heavily indebted to many horror
movies that have gone before, with a climax that goes out of its way to
evoke The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and
Deliverance with a naked Leatherface stand-in and a
mentally challenged yokel playing a mouth harp. But what makes
Eight Eyes stand out from its many peers is how it feels
like a product of genuine affection for and knowledge of the scuzzy
world of grindhouse cinema. Shot on grainy 16mm film, were it not for
the appearance of cellphones and internet cafes you might mistake it for
a lost movie of the '70s or '80s. Along with the explicit reference to
Tobe Hooper's American classic, the film nods to European exploitation
cinema. The location of the climactic atrocities is the sort of
abandoned mansion you might find in a Jean Rollin vampire thriller, and
the use of floating leaves in a late scene plays like a visual nod to
the similar use of feathers in Michele Soavi's
Stage Fright.
Eight Eyes is the first original production of Vinegar
Syndrome, a boutique bluray label known for loving restorations of
forgotten horror movies of the late 20th century. It's a perfect choice
as Jennings' film resembles the sort of psychotronic oddities the label
specialises in. It's an ideal movie for the late night slot at a film
festival, as it gets increasingly weird and esoteric towards the end,
just at the point when the audience's own two eyes are beginning to feel
heavy, when brief dreams begin to blur with the images onscreen. By the
end you're not entirely sure what you've just watched, but you know it
was a movie that was both unique in its vision while betrothed to genre
fare of the past.
