150 Word Review: 'Eyes Without A Face' (1960)
Face/On
Pierre Brasseur’s Dr. Génessier is an agreeable, penguin-shaped physician with un petit secret: he spends his nights surgically removing facial skin from kidnapped young women in his hidden operating room. He also experiments on runaway German Shepherds. Quel monstre! The good doctor has his reasons: he’s guilt-ridden over his daughter Christine, horribly disfigured in a car accident that was his fault. She hides behind a mask. Daddy keeps stitching new faces on his little princess, but they rot off.
Eyes Without a Face is an influential French horror film by director Georges Franju that’s as cold as a mortuary slab, a black-and-white nightmare about polite predators. Scalpels slice, dogs bite. Such beautiful mutilations. This film was controversial then; it’s still deranged. Edith Scob’s poor, scarred Christine is fragile. As the doctor’s sinister henchwoman, Alida Valli is a glamorous sociopath. Juliette Mayniel is tragic Edna, a victim with a pretty smile.