Eyes Without a Face

After seeing Diabolique, I knew the French mean business when it came to horror movies. I realized that even more after seeing Eyes Without a Face.

Any movie that contains surgery scenes will always have me turning away. It doesn't help much that Eyes Without a Face has a segment where demented Dr. Genessier (Pierre Brasseur) and his even more demented nurse Louise (Alida Valli) remove a girl's face in one piece. (Can you say "gross"?) All of that to repair the face of Genessier's daughter Christiane (Edith Scob). Isn't that sweet?

Of course, there are the small details of Eyes Without a Face that make it even more horrifying. There's Georges Franju's direction, which could be compared to Hitchcock or Clouzot. And that score by Maurice Jarre (more famous for Lawrence of Arabia). It sent chills up my spine like Bernard Herrmann's score for Psycho.

Eyes Without a Face is one of the more unnerving horror movies. The most unsettling part of this has to be Christiane's mask. The blank and expressionless face she wears to hide her real (and heavily damaged) face just flat out scares me. Also, don't be surprised if it reminds you of another mask of similar traits.

My Rating: *****