September Army Mission: See You in September

by in Kryptic Army

In 1959, the band The Tempos released the song See You in September. Using that song title as a starting point, we’re going to “focus” on the eye part. In horror films over the years, the eyes have been something to exploit, either by damaging them, taking away their use, or just making you twitch when something crawls up by them.

So, during the month of September, you have to find and watch two horror films that you haven’t seen before, that have either Eye or Eyes in the title. Now this mission might be a little challenging for some of you out there, but after all, if this wasn’t a little work, it wouldn’t be an army, would it? Although, if anybody chooses to watch Headless Eyes, let me apologize up front!

You have until 11:59pm on Sept. 30th, to find and watch these two titles, and then report back to the Krypt. This might not be too easy, so start looking now. But I think you can find a couple out there that are more than worth a watch.

21 thoughts on “September Army Mission: See You in September”

  1. All righty, finally got around to finishing movies for this one!

    Eyes (2015) Japan
    Pretty average ghost story from Japan. Young high school girl keeps seeing things, weird letters keep popping up on her apartment’s address plate (English letters, which is even weirder), and slowly a mystery begins to unravel. It was a little slow and not super original, but by the time you get to the end, when all the pieces fall together and the reveal gives you that “holy crap, what the fuck” feeling, it almost makes it worth the wait. Almost.

    Eye in the Labyrinth (1972) Italy
    Surprisingly boring giallo with not as many deaths as are implied in the movie description. Woman goes searching for her missing lover only to uncover a horrible truth. I had to watch it in shifts, as I nearly fell asleep during the first half. I say skip it, though Rosemary Dexter gives a decent performance and she’s certainly nice to look at.

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  2. 1st Eye: My Little Eye (2002)
    SYNOPSIS: 5 young adults are put into a house in the middle of nowhere for an internet reality show. If everyone stays until the end of the allotted time, they all win 1 million dollars. But it seems someone doesn’t want them to collect.

    REVIEW: I expected this movie to be better than it was. I thought the premise held promise and the tension built slowly which I hoped would lead to a strong and tension filled ending. Instead the lack of characterization of all but 2 of the characters and plot holes left the end feeling anticlimactic and a bit boring. Characters change personalities at a whim, and the character who dies and starts the dramatic shift in narrative towards the end is so underdeveloped until about 10 minutes before his death I even forgot he was in the house. Certain things that happen that don’t seem to make sense or have no purpose. It is a found footage style of movie but this wasn’t an issue for me as I like those type of movies when they are done properly. I don’t think I can recommend this to anyone but your mileage may vary.

    2nd Eye: Dark Eyes of London (1939)
    SYNOPSIS: A detective investigating dead bodies found in the Thames, discovers that an Insurance Salesman is having people sign their policies over to him as collateral for loans. He then murders them and dumps them in the Tames. He uses a home for the blind as a cover for his crimes and a misshapen and over-sized blind brute to assist him.

    REVIEW: As a classic horror fan I liked this movie quite a bit. It has some faults but not enough to hamper my enjoyment. We have the typical attempts at humor in the form of an American policeman visiting London and Bela Lugosi losing his accent altogether when in disguise. But despite these missteps, the movie; when looked at deeply, is rather dark in tone. The idea of the murders and the blind men used as unwitting accomplices is dark; but the scene where Lugosi deafens a blind man just so he can’t be questioned by the police is pretty disturbing for its time. Lugosi is in great form as well. I would recommend this to anyone who like classic horror, Bela Lugosi fans, those who like detective framed horror and well; anyone who isn’t dead set against older horror movies.

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    • My Little Eye is one that I still haven’t gotten around to. Still might be a while.

      I also enjoyed Dark Eyes of London. I had seen it years before but just recently re-watched it and think I enjoyed and/or appreciated it more this time. Then again, I am a sucker for these old black and white films of that era. It makes me feel like a kid again, catching some rare film on a Saturday afternoon on my 13″ black and white TV!

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      • Jon, maybe you’d want to bump My Little Eye up a little higher on your to-watch list there. Because the time and place it was made and came out, already warrants enough significance to catch up with it. The Blair Witch Project might have been a 1999 game changer, but in 2002 the whole found footage genre was still far away from being the popular wave in genre cinema it became with films like the Paranormal Activity series.

        I’m not a big fan of found footage films myself. But I recall, even despite the unappealing synopsis, My Little Eye had a tight and tense feel to it, its style handled with visual consistency. So in that sense, its execution surprised me. And unexpectedly so, also kept my interest throughout. In 2002, this was a pretty innovative conceptual approach to present as a feature film.

        This being said, I might want to rewatch it myself. To see what I would think of the story and characters now, as Chris seemed to have picked up on some flaws there that might have slipped by me unnoticed on that first time viewing experience.

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      • I do think My Little Eye held my attention. As I mentioned it is a bit of a slow burn but I just felt the end fizzled out so that it felt like the build-up was for not. As for plot flaws, maybe I missed something but some things didn’t add up to me. And most of the characters were too underdeveloped for my taste. Especially when the reveal came and the played a critical role ion the plot. Some also had traits or skills that there was never allusion too before hand. I prefer for things that happen to have a flow to them. But that’s just me. But Gert is right; it did hold my attention and it was a good use of the found footage concept. So while I didn’t care for the final film…you may love it.

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  3. Eye Got It!

    #1
    EYEBALL (1975)
    d. Umberto Lenzi (Italy/Spain)

    A group of American tourists seeing the sight of Barcelona are targeted by a red-gloved killer with a penchant for slashing and dashing and tarrying only long enough to puncture the victim’s left eye as a calling card. With a literal busload of suspects and a cranky veteran cop (retiring in a week) on the case, this is an admirably energetic and playful entry in the giallo sweepstakes, one of the last entries of the Italian heyday and Lenzi’s final effort in the subgenre.

    While not terribly bloody or scary or artfully directed (outside of Barcelona’s natural charms, since the film doubles as a travelogue – why let a string of murders get in the way of your vacation?), it does manage to keep things lively and suspenseful since Lenzi makes pretty much everyone look suspicious at some point, from Mirta Miller’s (Count Dracula’s Great Love, Dr. Jekyll vs. the Werewolf) sexy photographer to George Rigaud’s (Horror Express, All the Colors of the Dark) seemingly benevolent man of the cloth to exotic model Ines Pellegrini (the same year she appeared as “The Slave Girl” in Pasolini’s Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom) to Hammer and Italian horror mainstay John Richardson (One Million Years B.C., Vengeance of She, Black Sunday, Torso) as a businessman having an affair with his secretary (Martine Brochard) who suspects his estranged wife (Marta May) is behind it all.

    There’s nothing particularly notable about Eyeball – it’s another giallo, no more or less – but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a lot of fun.

    #2
    EYE SEE YOU (2002)
    d. Gillespie, James (USA)

    After a serial cop-killer racks up nine victims – including his best friend and young fiancee – FBI agent Jake Malloy (Sylvester Stallone) becomes suicidally alcoholic and is encouraged by his superior (Charles S. Dutton) to visit a specialized detox center in remote and snowy Wyoming, where he joins an array of similarly addicted keepers of the peace of every stripe… who immediately start getting bumped off by our supposedly dead killer.

    Despite stalling Gillespie’s (I Know What You Did Last Summer) once-promising career, Eye See You is not a complete disaster. It is, however, an uninspired retread of a dozen superior films and underutilizes an extremely capable cast by merely having them snort testosterone at one another and then falling under the killer’s blade one by one.

    Honestly, folks, you don’t hire Courtney B. Vance, Jeffrey Wright, Robert Patrick, Robert Prosky, Tom Berenger, Stephen Lang, Sean Patrick Flannery, and Kris Kristofferson and then just use them as cannon fodder. As for Stallone, he’s completely at sea here, rendering clunky scenes of trauma and tamping down his natural alpha-dog tendencies until the final reel.

    For a horror film, there’s not a lot of overt gore on display; like Se7en, its most apparent influence, the grisliest images are presented after the fact (the most dramatic example being a police baton found shoved down a strung-up victim’s throat). There are a few enjoyably creative kills (power drills through peepholes, slashed jugulars), but for the most part it’s by-the-numbers “who’s the killer” material with suspects aplenty, identity-obscuring camera angles, and red herrings galore.

    There’s likely a drinking game to be had in listing other fright flicks Eye See You reminds you of and that you’d rather be watching. In the final analysis, it’s an inoffensive popcorn burner with a big-budget supporting cast, of interest to Stallone completists (guilty as charged) and not many others.

    Click link for full Blu-ray review:
    https://horror101withdrac.blogspot.com/2020/09/eye-see-you-2002-blu-ray-review.html

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    • I watched Eyeball from the recent Blu-ray and actually liked it better than I remembered, though the last time I think I watched it was from a PAL transfer from a Turkish VHS tape!

      Not sure if I could handle the Stallone movie….maybe.

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    • Good one on Eyeball there, Aaron. You just reminded me I still have this on my Italian to-watch list. Seems like it’s a worthwhile 90 minutes of giallo material (no more, no less — works just fine for me, when in a convoluted red-blooded & imaginative yellow-papered mood). However, for this month’s mission I already had my eye — haha — set on two other titles. Which I’ll be reporting / debriefing about in a minute here.

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  4. Cold Eyes Of Fear (1971)
    Aka title: Desperate Moments
    Italian title: Gli occhi freddi della paura

    This one was interesting. Its opening scene aims to drop you smack in the middle of a giallo. But you’re getting fooled, soon enough you’ll be entering a home invasion flick. As if that wasn’t enough to set you off on the wrong foot, you’ll also get the feeling this might very well turn into a poliziesco at any time. And as far as guessing the killer’s motivation goes, it’s not really a murder mystery either. Perhaps a fitting description would be: a ‘crime intrigue thriller’ that only during the final reel shows us some distinct ‘cat & mouse / stalk & slash’ overtones. So, we do get the nudity (beginning) and violence (middle) and horror (ending) that the genre is notorious for. But it’s all rather subdued and strictly giallo lovers might come out disappointed.

    Nevertheless, what all happens in between, isn’t bad. It focuses more on intrigue – two villains keeping a young lawyer and his female lover hostage in a wealthy elder judge’s villa, but why? – rather than exploitation of shocks and thrills. It’s pretty talkative too and the intentions of the two killers unfold quite linear, making the story not as convoluted (as we’re used to, in your standard giallo). But all this turns out in favor of Enzo G. Castellari’s directorial approach. It’s noticeable he devoted more time to stylize his directing. Some inventive camera angles impressively enhance matters, whether it be during the cast’s dialogue play or focusing on objects, thereby enlarging their significance in certain scenes.

    Given the fact that Cold Eyes Of Fear came out in 1971 – the booming wave of more sleazy & gory gialli and more violent poliziesco still had to occur – I feel this film deserves a little more recognition. It’s bold enough for its time – the genre of home invasion films had not even been fully conceived – and Castellari really shows us a different, more contemplated side of his film making skills (as opposed to the more energetic ‘point & shoot’ style he would showcase during his early ’80s bonkers action-orientated ventures). Also worth mentioning are Ennio Morricone & Bruno Nicolai’s eclectic psycho jazz tunes on the soundtrack, which are surprisingly not over-used but instead lending this era’s typical unnerving urban vibes to certain moments in the picture.

    White Of The Eye (1987)

    Now this is some film. In terms of serial killer themed outings, I’m of the opinion it should’ve deserved as much recognition as, let’s say, Terrence Malick’s ’73 Badlands or Michael Mann’s ’86 Manhunter (that both come before) and on grounds of being the cinematic endeavourment it is, echoes the level of headstrong artistic accomplishment of a film like Philip Ridley’s ’90 The Reflecting Skin (which came after). White Of The Eye is visually impressive (the cinematography, the steadicam storytelling) and deeply rich in story content (narrative and characters).

    Futhermore, there’s a magnitude to it that flirts with Indian mysticism – albeit to a much lesser extent – in a way that could make you reminisce films like Peter Weir’s The Last Wave (1997) or John McTiernan’s Nomads (1986). Granted, it’s a stretch to mention Weir & McTiernan’s two non-serial killer works, but here’s my point of linkage: Both are very different films that focused on ancient tribal instincts linked to a nature of cosmic proportions as a more central plot core, while Donald Cammell merely touches upon the notion, by making it an intriguing personal characteristic of our serial killer’s psyche. Because after all, we’re dealing with a complex psychopathic character here – (un)balancing between the normality of reality and the madness of insanity – and not anything of the supernatural kind.

    White Of The Eye is decisively a little more offbeat than the first two films I mentioned and more down-to-earth than the latter two, which makes me pretty much hold it as highly esteemed as Ridley’s The Reflecting Skin. Cammell’s impressively original directing style certainly uplifts matters to make it one of the more unique, authentic and daring serial killer films to come out of the ’80s. I’ll refrain from giving any plot info, since this one – just like many other films – is best to be entered without knowing anything in advance about it (and that includes not Googling any images about it, not reading reviews and not watching the trailer).

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    • I honestly can’t remember if I’ve seen Cold Eyes of Fear before. I do remember buying it back in the day when it hit DVD but don’t remember if I ever got around to it. But you do have me very interested in White of the Eye. Love hearing about titles I didn’t even know about.

      And yes, I will get to My Little Eye at SOME point…

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      • Really, Jon, even Aaron hadn’t made you aware of White Of The Eye yet?

        I’ll confess I wasn’t aware of this film either. I discovered a DVD of it, last month in some store. I noticed Donald Cammell’s name, realizing he had previously co-directed Performance (1970) with Nicolas Roeg and also helmed Demon Seed (1977). This was reason enough for me to pick it up blindly. And then… your Kryptic Mission: See You In September! came along, magically timed!

        I’d say: So here’s your chance to enter it without even knowing the killer’s identity from the start (if that might still be possible at this point). Some home video releases at the time had poster art that didn’t even bother to hide this, although the film doesn’t want you to know for sure during the first half. And a quick image search on the interwebs will already show too many stills too, I’ve noticed.

        About those other film titles I mentioned: It’s not like you can compare Camell’s film to them. I was more referring to their status as well as the similar engaging impact they had on me as a first time viewing experience. But White Of The Eye is a pretty special breed on its own.

        PS: Just noticed I typoed my way into 1997 instead of 1977 there (with The Last Wave’s year of release).

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  5. Alrighty….didn’t actually wait until the last minute like I did last month! For my two films, I picked two with the same name that actually came out in the same year. See how easy that was?

    Red Eye (2005) – Directed by Wes Craven, I’m not sure why I never bothered with this one before, but this mission did give a reason to finally knock it off. More thriller than horror, but Murphy does play a good psychopath here. Same Brian Cox didn’t have more to do, but it was still okay. Not a favorite of Craven films for me, but not terrible.

    Red Eye (2005) – This is a Korean film, originally titled Redeu-ai, about a trip on a train that was involved in an accident many years ago that killed a lot of people. Which now, some say the train is haunted. There is a couple of storylines going on with an interesting story. But scary or creepy? Not that much. I did like the idea behind what they were doing, but as a horror film, I didn’t think it worked too well.

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    • Huh. I’ve managed to successfully mix up Red Eye with Flightplan (another 2005 movie) for the last fifteen years. I remember them both as being okay but apparently psycho Cillian Murphy has been the real standout here.

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    • I felt the same about Craven’s Red Eye – it was a very mainstream and accessible thriller that did its job without being exceptional. I would watch it again but I don’t think my feelings about it would change much.

      Haven’t heard of the other one but how funny that there were two Red Eyes released in 2005!

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  6. Okay, I’m probably close to getting booted for being lazy, but I watched The 3rd Eye and The 3rd Eye 2.

    In the first film, two newly orphaned sisters are disturbed by spirits in their home. The eldest undergoes a ceremony to open her third eye so she can see what her younger sister sees. The younger is possessed by the spirits of the house’s previous occupants and goes off to kill their murderer. Her spirit is dragged in to their world, and sis goes after her. Plot twist: her third eye was already half open before the ceremony, so she was able to see her boyfriend, but DIDN’T REALISE HE WAS DEAD. Anyway, the boyfriend goes to heaven after helping to guide the younger girl back from the evil realm.

    The sequel opens a year later. The younger girl is killed by a spirit that followed her home from school, and the elder sells the now non-haunted house and drives off in her Lexus to volunteer at an orphanage run by a wonderful couple. She finds a girl troubled by the spirit of a young child, and together they free that spirit.

    Bad idea. Bloody mayhem ensues, family secrets are revealed, and evil is sorta-kinda vanquished once again.

    I think the second film the was more interesting/gory/exciting of the two, and if you don’t know Thai and aren’t keen on subtitles, feel free to skip the first (or both!).

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    • Don’t you worry, Cate. Nobody gets booted out of this army as long as you’re watching stuff you’ve never seen before. So you’re good!

      I’m not sure I’ve even heard of these 3rd Eye movies, but now will!

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  7. Movie 1: 2 Evil Eyes

    Argento and Romero?! Taking on POE?! I’ve never even heard of this one previously! Excitedly, I dove in, but even as a fan of anthology features; this one was a bit of a slow burn. I can’t help but feel that this might have been a little better as 2 separate feature length films instead of 2, 1 hour films. (I know, I know… “Masters of Horror” didn’t quite exist yet.) Or if either of them had not been so long. (45 minutes each would’ve been suitable too.) Romero’s offering although well told, was not that intriguing. And Argento’s unveiling, even with the many surprises that were laced throughout, still seemed to lose my attention (how many times do we have to watch the cat being murdered?) I loved the final reveal from behind the wall! The effects and creatures were fantastic! I just found myself slightly distracted at points.

    Movie 2: The Crawling Eye

    What a snoozer. I liked the effects when we finally get to see the creatures. But, much like other movies, I hate to go nearly the hour mark before seeing the titular idea on the screen. I think it’s interesting that they had the premise of a psychic being used to communicate or be aware of the creatures (a gimmick that had repeatedly proven itself to be quite effective in horror movies time and time again.) Overall, I liked the monsters, but my copy had terrible audio that I found to be quite a hindrance to my enjoyment of the feature.

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    • I still there are some good moments in Two Evil Eyes, but I would agree, it does not show the best from either of those two directors.

      But for Crawling Eye, I will say it is one of my favorites. Such a great and original creature, and one that really fits what the title calls for! Even though it was originally called The Trollenberg Terror, but that is beside the point. Sorry you didn’t enjoy it more, but being a sucker for those old ’50s flicks, I love it.

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