Runtime: 90 minutes
Directed by: Avery Crounse
Starring: Dennis Lipscomb, Guy Boyd, Rebecca Stanley, Sally Klein, Fran Ryan
From: Elysian Pictures
I now know the upcoming Blu-ray release of this will be marvelous.
If you're wondering how I am able to make this proclamation two months before the Severin release All Our Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror is out... it'd be a dream if they somehow gave me an early release of the box set. Instead, late last week a mutual here noted that he saw the 4K restored movie via an online horror film festival known as Nightstream. Of course, it don't benefit anyone reading this now that this festival is ending tonight... it best fit my schedule to delay watching until yesterday, late in the evening. Even paying a premium theatrical ticket price to stream it on my laptop, I was happy to finally watch the movie. Waiting to view it in better than VHS quality was a real peach.
Like most people, my knowledge of Eyes of Fire only began once people online compared it to The Witch... or The Vvitch. After all, its plot is that a 17th century preacher in Colonial America is too radical for the village he lives in—so he and his followers go out into the woods to try and form their own settlement, only there are Native American ghosts to deal with. Besides the initial premise of religious extremists being forced to leave a colony a few hundred years ago in what is now the United States only to be victim to supernatural happenings and at least one witch being present, this shares little with the Robert Eggers movie. That's alright as both are great at doing their thing in the folk horror realm. While the former only goes wild with the presence of Black Phillip, this has many nutty elements. Dirt is eaten, bizarre visions are seen... The Witch is a better film overall—then again, The Witch doesn't have someone that looks like Carrot Top, a synth score-from Brad Fiedel-or the mute grandfather from Silent Night, Deadly Night.
Eyes takes its time unfurling the story in front of the viewer. The group's banishment is shown then there are teases throughout of evil in the woods before the fit hits the shan. It has a thick atmosphere of dread, unique moments I haven't seen in any other folk horror, low-fi effects that (mostly) still work in these modern times, psychedelic bits, and more. While I've been interested for years in checking this out, waiting until the print could be viewed as intended was a fortuitous decision on my part.
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