Eyeball
(aka; Gatti rossi in un labirinto di vetro)
 (PAL VHS)(1972)
review by Monkeyman

Heres a multiple choice question for you.You are on a coach trip to Spain,and one of your party is brutally murdered.Do you:
A).Turn tail and run away as fast as you can
B).End up in hospital being treated for shock and stress.
C).Shrug your shoulders and continue with your coach trip,even though it is readily obvious that a deranged killer has targeted your party for some outrageous Italian style eyeball violence.

If you guessed C., congratulations,youve just entered the wild and crazy world of Italian Giallo.

Mark(John Richardson), is in Spain to meet his secretary Paulette (Martine Brochard), with whom he is about to start an affair. She is on holiday with a whole wealth of shady characters/red herrings/beautiful lesbians etc. Marks wife, Alma(Marta May), decides to change her plans and arrives in Spain to meet her husband.

Literally hours after she arrives, a series of brutal murders begin. A killer is attacking various members of the coach party with a knife, and is removing their left eyeball from the scene of the crime. A few years prior to this a similar series of murders occurred in Mark and Almas home town, with Mark having discovered Alma unconcious on the floor holding a large knife.Now under normal circumstances this would be enough evidence for the electric chair in some states, but being an Italian Giallo, and a particlularly illogical one at that, we know better!!

There is a certain pleasure in watching members of the coach tour being brutally dispatched, and then the next scene shows the rapidly dwindling members of the tour happily boarding the coach on a day trip to Sitges.

I will never give away the name of the killer in any of my giallo reviews, but I DO need to say that the motive for the killers murderous spree in this film is possibly the most ludicrous that I have come across in over one hundred giallos that I have viewed so far. Bruno Nicolais score also deserves a mention.The repetitive main theme will be rattling its way around your brain for days.

Reading the above review, it would appear that I hate Lenzis film. Not so!! Its one of my favourites, but I cant really put my finger on the reason I like it so much. Its poorly written and directed, the acting is indifferent, and the plot is illogical, but there is a certain knowing style to Lenzi's direction where it would appear he is saying "look ,I know its crap,but it is also pretty damned entertaining crap"

I would thoroughly recommend that you track Eyeball down if you can,if only to see how crazy some Italian films can actually get!!