Starring: Karlene Crockett, Dennis Lipscomb, Guy Boyd
Director: Avery Crounse
Released: 1983
Mood: If you prefer the dark origins of Disney-fied tales and want to watch a movie that makes zero sense but at least has a cool villain and original concept.
The 1980s gave us some truly great stuff: iconic Western movies, memorable horror flicks, and of course, me. You’re welcome.
Unfortunately, the decade also produced a whole lot of schlock. Eyes of Fire is mostly schlock. And that’s SUPER annoying because I chose it from my to-watch list due to its online hype.
Reviewers out there are call this movie a hidden gem, underrated, and captivating. They give it high ratings and even higher praise. I was skeptical, given that it’s a folk horror-Western hybrid that’s both written AND directed by a first-timer. But I was ready to be surprised and delighted.
And then I was not.
Eyes of Fire takes place in 1750, somewhere in the French territory of the US. Two girls, one a young teen and one a child, are being interrogated by French military officials about where they come from and why they’re alone. The rest of the movie is their recap of what transpired.
Arrogant, slimy preacher Will Smythe (Dennis Lipscomb) is accused of adultery. One of the women he lives with is the teenager’s mother, Eloise (Rebecca Stanley), and she is indeed boinking the holy man. Her trapper husband is away too much, so she’s moved on.
Also living with them is a young woman named Leah (Karlene Crockett) who seems to be Will’s ward. Leah is considered by the adults to be batshit crazy, frequently ranting in strange tongues. The townsfolk think Leah is possessed and Will is a sinner, so they try to hang him. Leah appears to use magic to sever the noose.
The preacher and a handful of loyal followers leave town on a river raft. The group is attacked by Shawnee, then hunted by them, then saved by Eloise’s estranged husband, Marion (Guy Boyd). He joins their crew and it’s not awkward at all, watching Eloise make out with Will in front of her husband and children.
Will decides they should all move into an abandoned homestead that they find in a beautiful valley. But Leah has increasingly dark premonitions of what else lives in that valley, and how it’s going to end for them.
Eyes of Fire attempts to blend elements of witchcraft, faerie magic, and Native symbolism into a foreboding folk-frontier narrative reminiscent of the Brothers Grimm. I love this concept.
Unfortunately, it seems like director-writer Avery Crounse didn’t do ANY research into these areas. He just slapped together a few ideas and stereotypes, assembled some archetypical characters, tossed it all into a blender, and said, “good enough.”
SPOILERS AHEAD.
Will Smythe is so nauseatingly arrogant and creepy, it makes zero sense why anyone would follow him. Especially the way he carries on with a married woman – what preacher at that time would still have followers when openly sinning?
Leah’s mother was burned at stake, the girl does magic, and she has wild red hair, so all signs point to her being a witch but instead she’s an Irish faerie.
When Leah finds a clearing full of white feathers, Marion says it’s a Shawnee warning to stay away. But white feathers were typically an Indigenous symbol of peace, tranquility, and a connection to the spiritual world or ancestors.
Then there’s the group of naked people running around doing things like drinking directly from a cow. Wikipedia’s movie outline says they’re the spirits of French colonialists. They seem more like they’re based on Pagans, but they give Will’s group an evil spirit disguised as a little Native girl and Pagans don’t do evil.
AND THEN there’s the evil tree witch who steals people to absorb their essence. The non-Pagans seem to serve her in some way. This character, and her almost anthropomorphic tree full of human faces, are SUPER cool. The makeup and effects are really well done for the time. I would watch the hell out of movie just about the tree witch.
The acting in Eyes of Fire feels like community theatre in the woods. It’s entirely possible that with better acting, this would have been a totally different movie.
Only Karlene Crockett and Guy Boyd, as Leah and Marion, feel like whole, authentic people. Dennis Lipscomb, a trained Shakespearean actor, is overacting so hard it’s often comical, which probably wasn’t the intent for his character but at least makes his performance memorable.
There are white guys playing Natives and speaking gibberish. Some of the women’s dresses and hair are overtly ‘80s. The pacing is abysmal for the first half of the movie. And seriously, the acting is so bad that it bears repeating.
Everyone who gives Eyes of Fire those stellar ratings specifically notes that it does a good job of telling a folk story, but I disagree so hard. There’s never that powerful sense of a tale passed down over generations, its plot a straightforward line toward a clear lesson. There are WAY too many characters, too many sub-plots, and too many loose ends left at the end.
I don’t get the fuss at all. I would never watch this movie again. Not even to see the director’s cut with 22 minutes of additional footage that apparently makes at least some of it make sense. That just sounds like 22 more minutes of torture.
