Despite being made by the production company behind the first Friday The 13th movie, Eyes Of A Stranger isn't quite the typical slasher movie cash-in you'd expect despite being made during the first few years of the decade where stalk 'n' slash movies seemed to be coming out almost weekly. Mark Jackson's script does layer in a bunch of by-the-book slasher movie plot devices but instead of just trotting out a cast of amateur actors to be murdered off in various bloody ways he attempts to make the movie more of a mystery thriller than an outright slaughter fest. It's a more interesting approach to the sub-genre but it does slow the movie's pace a tiny bit which may explain why this is one of the lesser known of its type.

After a wildlife photographer finds the body of a topless girl floating just below the surface of the water at a local swamp we learn that the town of Miami is currently being victimized by what looks to be a serial killer who has been stalking random women and ends-up raping and killing them. The extent of his maliciousness is proven to us when a waitress ends-up being followed home by our killer.

It seems to be another boring evening at home watching a cheesy horror movie on T.V. (which happens to be director Ken Wiederhorn's earlier effort, Shock Waves) but our lovely British-accented victim soon starts getting phone calls from our killer where he calls her name out in sing-song and says crude insults towards her. It might be taken out of Black Christmas and When A Stranger Calls' playbook but it still builds up some good early mood that's only enhanced by a rumbling synthesizer tinged score. It also ends with a series of brutal deaths (her visiting boyfriend has his head cleaved off in a well-staged moment) that sets a tone the rest of the movie just can't maintain.

Lauren Tewes plays local television reporter Jane Harris who has been juggling her job, taking care of her blind and deaf sister Tracy (Jennifer Jason Leigh, in her movie debut), and carrying on a relationship with lawyer boyfriend David (Peter DuPre). She also is quite upset by all the killings going on and decides to set-out to try and find out whom our murderer happens to be.

Luckily for her then that she starts becoming suspicious of one of her neighbours who she saw one night in the parking garage changing clothes and throwing out a stained shirt. So in between Jane trying to piece together clues we get various suspense set pieces where our killer slays various people (there's a few throat slashings and the like) as well as out-of-place flashback scenes involving Jane's guilt over Tracy being abducted when they were children before the expected finale that has our murderer going after Jane's sister - which lets Wiederhorn set up some okay scenes of mind games between our killer and Tracy's unseeing eyes as well as having a slow-motion finish that copies the makers earlier, more popular, flick.

While Eyes Of A Stranger feels more like a Nancy Drew movie with slasher moments peppered throughout, I have to give it credit for trying something different. There might be a few too many clichéd moments (the typical "killer in the backseat" scene and a sequence where Tewes is trapped in the killer's apartment when he comes home not long after she's snuck in) and I would've liked Jackson's script to at least give us a smidge of insight into the killer's motives but it still turns out to be a watchable effort thanks to Wiederhorn's steady direction and a few decent gore flashes that were created by effects maestro Tom Savini.

Tewes does okay even if she's somewhat bland in the lead and Leigh handles herself well even if she doesn't get most of her screen time until the finale but the best performance of the movie comes from John DiSanti as our killer who brings across a decent sense of menace about himself while looking like an awkward, overweight grown man who's been unable to talk to, let alone pick up on, women his entire life.

Eyes Of A Stranger isn't quite the outright slasher movie you'd expect it to be and it's not as suspenseful a "whodunit?" as I'd of liked but it's still an acceptable 85 minutes and is, from what I've read at various sources, making its DVD debut in a fully uncut version. (Chris Hartley, 10/24/07)

Directed By: Ken Wiederhorn.
Written By: Mark Jackson.

Starring: Lauren Tewes, John DiSanti, Peter DuPre, Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Picture Ratio: 1.85:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: Because of its age this looks a little soft and a tiny bit fuzzy on DVD but for a low-budget slasher that's been out-of-print for a while it's still a decent looking transfer.

Extras: There's nothing here, not even a trailer.

This is available either by itself or as part of the "Twisted Terror Collection" that includes five other Warner horror titles. Along with the home video debut of the early John Carpenter telefilm Someone's Watching Me this is one of two very good reasons to pick-up this eccentric collection of genre flicks - unless of course you're a huge fan of Wes Craven's Deadly Friend because that's in there too...