Eyes of A Stranger Movie Review

Eyes of a Stranger is a 1981 horror/thriller directed by Ken Wiederhorn and starring Lauren Tewes, John DiSanti and Jennifer Jason Leigh in her acting debut.

The movie begins with a body which is found. There has been three murders recently in Miami. A woman is being followed home by some weirdo. He calls her on the phone. She calls the police to tell them about it. She goes home but the killer is at her place. Her boyfriend calls over and the killer murders him. Cut to a reporter called Jane(Tewes) who lives with her deaf, mute and blind sister Tracy(Leigh). She has a boyfriend called David(Peter DuPre). Jane recalls when she was younger and how she was with Tracy but she left her alone. Tracy got picked up by a man.

Jane sees a car in the lot and she asks the security man who owns it. He tells her it is a man who lives in the apartment across the street. The killer strikes again. Jane begins to think that the killer is a man called Stanley Herbert(DiSanti). The killer continues his spree. Jane continues to think about what happened to her sister. The doctors couldn't figure out why she was blind, deaf and mute. Jane becomes convinced that Herbert is the killer. She gets the key to his apartment and she enters. She looks around but he comes back unexpectedly. She escapes with his shoe. She gives the shoe to David, who is a lawyer. He thinks that she is crazy.

Jane gets herself a gun and she decides to call Herbert and tell him that she knows he is the killer. She keeps calling him. He tells her that he is confused. He recognises her voice from TV and he knows who she is. He decides to go after her sister. He goes to Jane's place and he sees Tracy. He messes with her at first. She realises that he is there and she throws coffee at him and runs. Jane is is in his apartment. She can see her place from across the street and she spots him in there. Tracy finds that her sight is returning. She finds the gun and she shoots at Herbert. She thinks that he is dead so she lets her guard down. He gets back up and attacks her again. Janet comes home and she manages to shoot Herbert in the head. Tracy regains her speech.

This was an interesting movie. It has elements of horror and thriller. The special effects were by Tom Savini but some of the gorier scenes were cut from the version I saw so it was a disappointment there. I enjoyed the story,though and I thought that it was a good movie throughout. I did think that the side story about the sister being abducted when she was young could have been left out. but I suppose it added to the ending of the movie. It was fun to see Jennifer Jason Leigh in her first role. She didn't do much, but I didn't dislike her character. Overall, this is an entertaining film which is worth a look. I will give it a 6/10.