While it could be said that Eyes Of Fire didn't exactly set the world of cinema alight when it was first released, this American folk horror has now been rediscovered and reappraised by those with a preference for that particular sub-genre. That is thanks in no small part to the work of Kier-La Jannise and anyone else who worked on the impressive "All The Haunts Be Ours" boxset, released a couple of years ago by Severin Films. I own that boxset, but I have yet to make the time to fully dive into it. Seeing Eyes Of Fire was on Shudder, however, gave me a small kick up the backside to at least make a start through something I rushed to purchase.
The year is 1750, the place is the American Frontier. Dennis Lipscomb plays a preacher named Will Smythe, using his position to cavort with a couple of women. This doesn't go down too well with other members of the settlement, leading to Will and a number of followers leaving to find a new home elsewhere. While figuring out the best place to resettle, the group are attacked by Native Americans, and eventually stumble into a valley that they realise their attackers won't enter. That seems good, but there's obviously a reason why the Native Americans don't want to go near the place. While this is all happening, one female member of the group (Leah, played by Karlene Crockett) is working to develop her witchcraft, protecting those around her and seeing the truth about the valley they find themselves in.
An astonishing feature debut from writer-director Avery Crounse (who followed this with, ummmm, The Invisible Kid five years later), Eyes Of Fire is a perfect mix of grounded dangers and imagery pulled directly from dark fairytales and folklore. The artwork, the cinematography, the makeup (rarely have I wanted to spend so much time praising makeup artists, the work here is phenomenal), and even the music (by Brad Fiedel, who kept himself very busy before delivering some of his best work over the next few years) all combine to great effect. I may be preaching to the converted here, no pun intended, but this film feels as impressively unsettling today as it would have felt when first released.
The performances are impressively odd, and I don't mean that as a criticism. The people onscreen are almost constantly veering close to, if not staying in, a fugue state, taken there by manipulation or fear, or both, and everyone manages to convey that perfectly. Lipscomb excels in the kind of role you could easily imagine being perfectly-suited to a prime Jeffrey Combs, Crockett gets to enjoy being dismissed as insane by those around her, giving her time and space to stay ahead of whatever danger may be heading their way, and Rebecca Stanley, Sally Klein, and Guy Boyd play the other key figures who have their fates intertwined with that of the preacher.
The framing device - the story is narrated by characters shown in scenes that bookend the main part of the plot - is a slight mis-step, and the first act is weaker in comparison to everything that comes along after it, but there isn't anything else here that I would single out for criticism. Crounse may have only written and directed three feature films, but at least one of them is very close to being a masterpiece.
9/10
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