13 Nights of Shocktober: Eyes Without a Face

by A.J. 

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some horror movie recommendations to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 5: French Horror Night: 
“My face frightens me. My mask frightens me even more.”
Eyes Without a Face

There’s a good argument that the 1960 French film Eyes Without a Face is more of a thriller with horror elements than an all-out horror movie. However you classify it, Eyes Without a Face is a peculiar film with haunting imagery. Since its addition to the Criterion Collection and late-night airings on TCM, it has become almost like required viewing for fans of classic horror and international horror films. Eyes Without a Face could qualify as “arthouse horror,” or "elevated horror," but watching it isn’t like doing homework. Eyes Without a Face is its own brand of horror.

After a car accident disfigures Christiane (Edith Scob), her father, Dr. Genessier (Pierre Brasseur), a renowned plastic surgeon, fakes her death and keeps her locked away at their country estate. He makes her wear an expressionless white mask and conducts experimental surgeries to restore her face. Dr. Genessier is acting entirely on his own wishes, not his daughter's; he mentions briefly that he is responsible for the accident that maimed her. Dr. Genessier’s loyal and murderous assistant, Louise (Alida Valli), preys on young women to lure to the chateau for the doctor to use in his experiments. Christiane wants none of this, but she is a prisoner in her own home.

There are elements of body horror in Eyes Without a Face though it is not as graphic or explicit as the modern era films of David Cronenberg or Guillermo Del Toro. However, there is a prolonged scene of surgery where a girl’s face is removed that is graphic and gross. It is not played for sensation but coldly and clinically without any background music and very few cuts. The horror of the scene comes from its context. There is nothing sadistic to the surgery, Dr. Genessier is just doing his work. The final moments of the film are filled with eerie and creepy imagery beautifully shot in stark black and white.

This is a good film to watch with someone that doesn’t like horror movies but wants to watch something spooky. It is totally unlike anything resembling a conventional horror movie. There are no pop-up scares. The villains are not especially devilish or sadistic. The climax where Christiane finally takes agency of her own fate is played low-key. There is a detached feeling between the film and its macabre subject matter. It also has the structure of a mystery/thriller though we the audience know every angle of the story. Christiane’s fiancé believes she is still alive and detectives are on the case of the missing girls, but these elements are in the far background.

Eyes Without a Face straddles the thriller and horror genres and also the classic and modern film eras. The unsensational, almost documentary-like approach to the story and characters lean towards the trends and style of the French New Wave being pioneered at the time by Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. The score, however, is firmly rooted in the older era of filmmaking and feels too jaunty at times for what is happening on screen. The Criterion Collection, dedicated to highlighting notable classic and modern films, has few horror films in its library. I'm glad this is one of them.