Eyes Of Laura Mars (1978) I'm aware some critics think of this one as an American-ized 'Giallo'......a psycho-sexual thriller littered with stabbed corpses and a surprise reveal of the killer.
A fair enough assessment. There's loads of trendy, stylized visuals, a semi-paranormal talent given to the lead, and a general indifferent coldness to the rapidly increasing body count.......all the qualities you'd find in all those many Italian slashers that flooded cinema after Dario Argento's trend-starting 1970 "The Bird With The Crystal Plumage".
Plus it features the added bonus of supreme 1970's diva-goddess Faye Dunaway in the title role, an upscale fashion photographer who stages her supermodels in gory poses as murder victims. Naturally, the expensive coffee-table book of Laura-Faye's photos is a Dunaway runaway best seller......
Turns out, somebody's really into her artistic visions with a vengeance, slicing and dicing Laura's friends, associates and models with....uh....cutting edge frenzy. (But not, I should point out, with the over abundance of splatter you'd see in a Giallo. This is, after all, mainstream Hollywood product, and not meant as a gore-wallow for fanboys.)
At first, Laura doesn't know what to make of John Neville, the hip, sardonic detective assigned to catch the killer. And who could blame her, since he's played by that vaguely dangerously looking young actor, Tommy Lee Jones. Oddly enough, Neville begins to believe in Laura's ability to endure sudden, startling images of the murders, as seen from the killer's point-of-view. Hmmmmm......
More than anything that goes on in this movie, I had more fun imagining the behind-the-scenes moments that might've transpired between the notoriously high-strung, capricious Dunaway and the blunt, suffer-no-fools Jones. Oh, to be a fly the wall......
But back to the movie.......where Laura and Neville end up hot 'n heavy on the sheets, much to the raised eyebrows of Neville's fellow detectives. Meanwhile, our dedicated psycho-slasher goes about the required business of wiping out the supporting cast, one after the other.
You'll hear no spoilers from me, though I can't resist pointing out that you can spot the Big Twist Reveal from about a hundred miles away.....but somehow that doesn't make the movie any less entertaining to watch.
Why's that? Lots of great folks sprinkled into the cast, most prominently Rene Auberjonois (Laura's tempestuous agent), Raul Julia (Laura's deadbeat ex husband) and the ever twitchy Brad Dourif (as Laura's lowlife, ex-criminal chauffer)
And top notch personnel behind the camera as well, with the story originating with that new young up-and-coming writer-director John Carpenter (!!) and typically efficient direction by tireless journeyman Irvin Kershner (of "The Empire Strikes Back", "Robocop 2" and "Never Say Never Again")
Producer Jon Peters couldn't talk his then girlfriend Barbra Streisand into playing Laura Mars and settled for her lending her full warble to the end credits song........and you don't normally hear La Streisand vocalizing in a movie where virtually nobody's left alive at the fade-out.....
Maybe not completely successful as a homegrown Giallo (not nearly enough perversity and blood dripping delirium to qualify), but still an enjoyable guilty pleasure anyway. If you love thrillers and the actors involved, it's worth checking out at least once....3 stars (***).
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