Voyeurism is a hobby fitting those people struck by neglect, abuse, boredom, or some combination thereof. In the case of Eye Without A Face, our hero, Henry (Dakota Shapiro), materializes friendships and connections for himself via spying through the hacked webcams of various women. He has agoraphobic tendencies, causing him anxiety and panic attacks in the face of ostensibly regular human interaction.
Henry is a shut-in. His home is a constructed labyrinth of netting, curtains, and pages of books stuck to windows to keep the outside world out and himself safe.
This is the setting provided by director and writer Ramin Niami. The film opens with eerie lighting by cinematographer Tara Violet Niami (Ramin’s daughter), and we can identify that we’ve been dropped into the film’s climax. There is a swinging light, tight corridors, and blood. We quickly leave the mess and cut to one week earlier, at the story’s true beginning.
Henry is seemingly bound to his computer chair as he sifts through six webcam channels featuring different women. Henry’s only true company is his flighty roommate Eric (Luke Cook), a part-time YouTuber, struggling actor, and full-time windbag. He is charming in an irritating, whimsical way.
During his spying, Henry develops his own ideas of who these people are. The women range from a webcam model to a dreamy musician to a suspicious suburbanite. The constant they all have is displaying their sexuality, whether it’s marketing it, exploiting it, or reserving it. Their attitudes towards sexuality and survival are a mirror of today’s landscape.
The same can be said with Eric’s YouTubing and pretentious acting prowess. They all want to be the star of their own story, and they capitalize on their looks and charm to lead them to success. In his own version of reality, Henry talks to these women one-sided, as if he’s corralling an ant farm. E
ye Without A Face, not to be confused with the brilliant 1960 French horror film Les yeux sans visage (Eyes Without A Face), is a horror movie exploring the morality and ethics behind our own exploitation. And daddy issues. Lots of daddy issues.
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Henry soon begins to suspect that one of the women is up to no good, engaging in acts of murder. This particular woman, Laura (Vlada Verevko), has a natural beauty and seductive appeal. Henry sees multiple men come and go through all of the various women’s homes, but the ones that visit Laura never seem to leave. Could Henry just be seeing things? Is it all in his head?
At the encouragement of Eric, Henry stops his medication and begins partaking in marijuana to quell his anxiety. He is tormented by what looks like flashbacks from his abusive father. He sees a killer begin stalking the people he spies on, killing them one by one. The killer is wearing a mask that resembles the mask he sees in a photo of his father. Does Henry even believe his own reality? Is it Laura killing people? Or has his father returned?
The obvious nod to the 1954 Hitchcock classic Rear Window is incredibly apparent here. In that film, James Stewart is healing from a broken leg and takes to spying on neighbors to pass the time. Henry is James Stewart here, but instead of recovering from a broken leg chaining him to his chair, he is handicapped by his own anxiety and sense of worth.
I wish there was more tension to be had, though. The best direction Niami gives us is tight and intimate close-ups of Henry, reminiscent of Jonathan Demme’s work in The Silence of the Lambs. But I never once felt like the envelope was pushed here like it could have been. I am reminded of what the late Roger Ebert wrote as he was reviewing Gus Van Sant’s 1998 remake of Psycho regarding its addition of a masturbation scene being appropriate. That is what I felt while watching Eye Without A Face, knowing Rear Window is out there. It is like masturbation; it evokes the real thing in an attempt to re-create remembered passion. I was hoping for stronger weight and higher stakes.
I appreciate the banter between Eric and Henry (most of the lifting is from Eric), but I was never fully invested in the characters. I also appreciate the themes and values that are explored here. The few moments we see of gaslighting, shaming of sex work, and the value of healthy boundaries are deftly crafted but gone too soon. I mostly felt like Henry as I watched this film, like I was a voyeur, too. I was detached and uninterested, staring at an ant farm myself.
Eye Without A Face is now available On Demand and Digital from Gravitas Ventures.
