The Hypnotic Eye (1960) Pardon us for this un-woke recollection.....but we couldn't help remembering that when this movie came out, most guys in the audience thought the most vital function of hypnosis was to trick pretty girls into removing their clothes.......
The filmmakers here came up with ingenious horror-movie variation on that idea.....using hypnosis as a tool to trick pretty girls into disfiguring themselves in all sorts of ghastly ways.
We don't how many times we watched this late at night when "Chiller Theaters" would take over the local TV station schedules......to this day we'd never forget the startling opening scene (a wowzer for 1960) - a young girl washing her hair in what she thinks is the sink, but is actually one of the open flame burners on her stove. Big ooooops.
Then we cut to a not quite convincing but eye popping special effect close up of the poor girl's head ablaze. (We'll resist the urge to say she looked like a real hottie.....literally. Oh, we just said it, didn't we?)
As it turns out, she's not the only one.......lovely girls all over town are mysteriously mutilating themselves for no apparent reason.....(sticking their heads in fans, drinking lye, yada, yada....)
Could it be some evil fiend planted subliminal suggestions in them while he rendered them hypnotized?
Hmmm.....wonder that if creepy stage hypnotist Desmond (Jacques Bergerac) and his sinister, gorgeous assistant Justine (Allison Hayes) have anything to do with the pile up of ruined babes?
We're probably making this movie sound more entertaining than it is, since the bulk of its short running time is devoted to long stretches of Desmond's tedious hypnosis act, as he convinces people to float in mid-air and bark like a dog.
A stalwart police detective and his plucky girlfriend try to unravel what's going on, especially after a cute friend of theirs (Merry Anders) having been Desmond-ized on stage, washes her face in sulfuric acid. Even worse for Merry, her doctor is played the real life 'Great Imposter' Fred Demara, who notoriously went around the country masquerading as doctors and other professionals whose jobs he knew nothing about. What a new challenge this was for Fred......pretending to act like a doctor....
You may well ask at this point, other than sounding like a suspicious foreigner, what other possible motive could Hyno-Creep and the hubba-hubba Justine have for forcing innocent girls to do grievous bodily harm to themselves?
That particular stupid, senseless reason reveals itself in a last minute twist that this film's screenwriter no doubt patted himself on the back for.
Cheesy, guilty pleasure fun for the most part......if you like to look in on crappy old horror flicks for at least for one viewing. But beware the film's attempts to lull you to sleep....unintentionally.
2 stars (**)
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