Starring Richard Basehart, and Lance Henriksen in one of his early roles, effects by Stan Winston.
Richard is a superstar eye surgeon in Beverly Hills. His daughter, mid 20s, is in a relationship with Lance, who is an eye doctor/surgeon himself, one of Richard’s students or protégés.
One day, Richard is driving the car with his daughter in the passenger seat, they get into an accident, she smacks her face on the windshield, her eyes are damaged and she loses her eyesight. Richard, even though it was clearly an accident, feels responsible for this, and feels he must do whatever he can to restore her vision. That is his specialty, after all.
But eye transplants are a super tricky thing. Richard knows everything about eye anatomy and surgery, but full transplants at this time, there was no approved technique, everything was experimental and unproven. But Richard feels he must do everything in his power, until his dying breath, to fix what he has done. Even if it means murder.
Richard, in his lab at home, figures out a way to transplant not just the cornea, but the entire eyeball from one animal to another. It’s revolutionary. But, a couple things- he doesn’t know if it can work with humans. And also, the donor eyeballs need to be from something that is alive, not from a cadaver. But who the hell would donate their 100% functional eyeballs while they’re still alive? Well, Richard figures out a way, whether the patients are willing or not. He steals them.
So what does he do with the donor who now has no eyes? He sticks him down in his basement dungeon where he has built a jail cell. They don’t have any eyes anyway, so it’s not like they’re gonna get very far even if they can make it out of the house.
But, complication- the eyes that he transplants into his daughter work only for a few days before they shrivel up and go bad. So what does Richard do? Well, he needs a steady stream of donors, so he starts prowling the streets of LA. And he’s gonna need to cram a bunch of eyeless people down in his basement dungeon jail cell.
He tries a few more times, but it always ends in the same result. One of his theories is that the eyes that he steals are from people who are too old. So his twisted little brain convinces him that he should set his sights on children.
Maybe this all would have worked, except one of the donors escapes and makes it out to the street.
Will he be able to flag somebody down for help? Will he be able to blow the whistle on mister hot shot eye surgeon guy who has taken this thing way too far? How will this madman be stopped?
This one feels like a suspense thriller, or maybe even a tv movie from the 70s or 80s, but with all the eye surgery and the eyeless people down in their jail cell, and impressive makeup and prosthetics by Stan Winston, this one is straight up horror.
Is this a good movie? Yes, very good. An effective little horror movie. Any room for improvement? Fer sure. Pacing is dreadfully slow through all of it. Acting is OK, not great. Best are the two leads, others are passable. But, I like how morose it is, disturbing even. Ending is not bad. If nothing else, I like how they stuck with the theme of the movie. General thumbs up.
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