I confess, this dark and very violent tale intrigued me. I watched in numerous times; mostly in an effort to finally figure out what I was missing! Finally I realized that I wasn't missing it, I just wasn't getting it all!

The Opening

The movie opens with a man moving about inside a woman's home. His face is not shown, but his gloved hands are as we witness him through a fishbowl... a fishbowl that the woman finds on a burner, her fish bubbling in the bowling water as she returns home...

A quick attack occurs and her head is slammed into a microwave oven door, shattering the door and rendering her unconscious...

The Plot

The movie shifts to scenes of David Keith & Cathy Moriarty as a happily married couple. He operates "fix-it" business out of the home and is always being called away to repair a television or some other piece of household electronics.

Through flashback sequences, we learn that they met in a rather odd fashion... and this is only the first of this seemingly unimportant fact that plays into a very, very confusing ending...

As hippies in the '70's, Cathy Moriarty and her boyfriend are traveling the country in their van. (Cliche-city, to be sure!) Their van is giving them problems and they pull into a service station/junk yard in the middle of nowhere. This oasis of safety along the desert of asphalt is operated by David Keith!

He manages to befriend the couple, and also manages to split them off one from the other. he sabotages the van so it will take a few days to fix, then proceeds to a) take the guy hunting and b) enter into a sexual relationship with Cathy! (Which is no doubt, to most video buyers tastes, better than the other way around!)

David and Cathy's soon-to-be-ex stalk a deer, and David teaches him the power of "the white of the eye"... that there is a kind of magical porthole to the soul there or some such nonsense... (I told you it's tough to follow!) and also that one must drink the blood of his prey after the kill... to capture the power and life's essence... or so it seemed.

In the end, David drives the van off with Cathy at his side and her ex nowhere in sight.

What Comes Next

David's vehicle, a large pickup truck, is seen in the area of another homicide, and the local detectives begin questioning him. Cathy gives him an alibi, knowing all the while he wasn't with her, but also knowing he couldn't be the killer. But she thinks he's having an affair, which if one of his customers had her way he would be!

Interestingly enough, this client; a very sexy and available woman who's husband is out of town a lot; can't seem to seduce David. She's frustrated and Cathy's suspicious... of the wrong thing!

Meanwhile, Cathy has gone to town and is sharing lunch with a friend when a cute little dark-haired girl flounces by. Cathy and her friend giggle about her curly-perm and hair color and wonder between themselves who this weeks beau is.

The Next Victim

We still don't know who the beau is, but the curly-permed girl is going to meet a grisly fate. In the most pulse-pounding scene of the movie, an intruder watches as this sweet, unsuspecting babe draws a bath. She has dressed in a two piece short and shirt outfit and is standing barefoot at her bathroom sink, trying to straighten out a slipped contact lens.

Suddenly the attacker springs... and grabs his wide-eyed victim from behind and in a very quick maneuver which looks like a "piledriver" a'la the WWF... slams her head onto the cold tile floor, knocking her out cold!

She is then laid out on a large bath towel, rolled up like a fajita with only her head and feet exposed, and then tied with a thin wire, twisted tightly to fully immobilize the helpless victim.

We then witness her being lowered into her waiting bath, where she wakes and gasps for air as a sneaker clad foot to her chest forces her under the water. Her eyes plead for mercy as air bubbles escape from her frightened lips... until the killer holds a hand mirror above the water... and our beautiful victim watches herself drown...

Under Scrutiny

David Keith is now the prime suspect and this time Cathy doesn't know what to do. She knows that David wasn't with her. In fact she is positive that he was in the dead girl's neighborhood because she saw his truck in the woods out back and had slashed his tires in a fit of jealous rage!

It Gets Weird Now

Cathy needs to think. She doesn't want to think that her loving husband could be a cold blooded killer, but... it's either that or he's cheating on her. She drives and drives... and finds herself at that old service station/junkyard/oasis-along-the-asphalt-desert... which is now operated by her old beau!

The old beau relates to her how intense and weird David seemed and how he thought he could capture the power of "the white of the eye" and a whole bunch of mumbo-jumbo that a better man than I might understand! The bottom line here is the absurdity of this guy still being here, as if he was waiting for his lost love to return to him.

Cathy is all the more confused and so she goes home and decides to take a bath. Only when she goes to her bathroom, she gets sick and is puking into the toilet when she notices a thread coming from under the tub... and she pulls it and sees it's a hair!

She investigates and finds several torso's (yeah, human... female human torso's) beneath her tub (downstairs) and really gets sick now!

Closing In

All the while, the detectives are closing in on David Keith, but he proves unflappable. In an effort to buy time, he uses the woman he's spurned as an alibi; knowing she's out of town on a trip with her unsuspecting husband. His reasoning for delaying the alibi... he didn't want to wreck her marriage... but of course she is unreachable; at this point we don't know if she really is gone or if she's dead.

The police have shown David crime scene photographs of the body parts of the curly-permed-cutie that were left behind by the killer in an effort to glean a clue or to cause a guilt-wracked David to confess... but to no avail.

The Grand Finale

David finds out that Kathy knows... David is hot on Cathy's tail and the cops are hot on David's. Cathy runs to her ex-beau and David follows. The boys have a face-off. David Keith is killed just as the cops arrive and the ex-beau is wounded. Cathy is left wondering how she could have been so stupid...

A feeling I shared after having watched this movie several times over a period of year and still not fully understanding all the twists and turns of the plot!

For those who like mad-dog-killer movies with a damsel-in-distress undertone... this is a pretty good flick. For those who like only to watch movies that can easily be followed... you better steer clear of "White of the Eye".

Best Scene: The Bathroom Knockout/Bathtub Murder is very well done and will have your heart pounding!

Worst Scene: The obviously obligatory shots of a human eye... with emphasis on the white area... whenever the killer is going to strike!

Whew... I typed and typed 'til my fingers are hoarse!

C ya...



Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Good for Groups