Faceless 4K 1987

The remake of the classic Les yeux sans visage was directed by Jesús Franco, a controversial personality and therefore doubly interesting. However, the freedom-loving and restless creator is still not at ease here, although he brings something iconic in his handwriting. The thing is, first of all, that behind his shoulders vigilantly stood a producer, whose name is not accidentally written out in the opening credits of the key already after the director's, and secondly, a clear budget was announced. These two components suggestively diluted the specific artistic style of Franco, allowing the picture to go out of the narrow circle of his admirers, reaching the level of a typical genre film with all the necessary attributes. Unfortunately, however, the film did not go beyond the most unpretentious horror, becoming just an average horror film inspired by the strong original, full of psychologism.

The former dramatic scripted backbone of the director and the producer "transplanted", like a skin from the face, on a shapely body, able to beckon the viewer with beautiful legs in no less alluring and beautiful stockings, but not to bother the work of the brain. Such a form-focused effect is tinged with filler, where each character's past psychological stuffing is replaced by genre clichés. The motivations of the characters come to the simplistic denominator of a blatant collection of various maniacs from a mad doctor to a mute psychopath with a chainsaw/blade/drill, which are nicely twisted on the director's favorite motif of an all-out obsession with sex with everyone. So a number of talented or simply recognizable guest actors suffer a creative fiasco, clinging to roles with unipolar labels. And if, say, the beautiful Caroline Munroe honestly does everything the audience, who understands the unpretentious duties of "Scream Queen," expects her to do, Helmut Berger will not even get one chance to make an effort, showing the skills of a real actor. And what kind of drama can we talk about in the key pillar of the story's ideological conflict - a young girl who has lost her face - if we can't trace any tension, inner struggle, moral doubts in a "cardboard" almost episodic heroine who constantly walks on screen with grotesque propsy ugliness that gets boring after half a minute because there is a few intriguing masks and dialogues, again, somewhere in the bed scenes' coordinates. Ah, but it is no accident how accurately the titles of a thoughtful original, which focuses on the eyes, like a mirror of the soul, plunging through them into the human gut, his experiences, impulses, dreams, and the mentioned only face in the remake - the image, appearance, superficial beauty - are discordant.

However, the film succeeds as a mere horror, fulfilling the entertainment task before the audience. And it is all the more good in the director's filmography, proving vividly that a creative man so free (sometimes even to the extreme with the abolition of cinematic rules) sometimes needs the counterbalance of a judicious producer's mind. Franco's authorial handwriting is evident only in ripples in the water and in a few amusing references, including his wife Lina Romay in an episode or the fictional Dr. Orloff brought into the story.

The result is a rather curious symbiosis of a lifetime of unbridled cinematic improvisation by a Spanish debating filmmaker and the strict rules of horror, with a commendable job with the props, restrained (and that's old Franco!) erotic moments, light, pleasant songs in the musical accompaniment and the overall concept of the classic original. I think everyone will decide for himself whether it's good or bad, because some people will be disappointed by the lack of surrealism (except bloopers-volateness in the script) characteristic of the author's children, and others, including me, will be pleased to see the genre canvass so carefully maintained without kinks.