With Halloween coming up, the topic of horror movies is becoming more of a common topic, but it’s hard to find a horror movie not influenced by Georges Franju’s, Eyes Without a Face. Four out of five students at Castaic have seen a movie influenced by Georges Franju, but almost none have seen the inspiration behind them. The movie is considered to be one of the most influential horror films, inspiring well known movies like Halloween, Face/Off, and The Skin I live in, along with Billy Idol’s song, Eyes Without A Face.
The opening scene features a woman throwing a corpse in a river. It then cuts to a man giving a speech on a new surgical operation that replaces faces. After being congratulated he’s called to identify a body. He says it’s his daughters and drives away. The next time we see him is at her funeral. The earlier woman, Louise, is shown standing next to him, with the girl’s fiancé.
The man goes home and starts to tend to a girl with a covered face. She’s revealed to be his real daughter, Christiane, who has a disfigured face due to a car accident. The father, Dr. Génessier believes he caused it and is driven by guilt to repair his daughter’s face. The body at the funeral was one of his victims.
He’s been killing young women and sewing their skin onto his daughters face in his lab, guarded by dogs. The grafts keep rejecting and peeling off of Christane, so he keeps killing more and more women. It’s revealed that Louise is actually his assistant.
Louise tricks and kills the victims for the doctor’s surgeries. She eventually finds another woman for the experiment and has her admitted to the doctor’s clinic.
After a little while the woman is released and given directions to the station. Louise traps and kidnaps her and prepares her for the skin graft but is called away for an investigation.
The police show up at the clinic and ask about the disappearance of a client. Dr. Génessier says that once anyone leaves, he doesn’t know where they go, and the police leave without any further questioning.
While the doctor and Louise are away, Christiane watches the woman sleep and seems to decide to escape. She wakes the girl up and frees her but is caught by Louise. She stabs Louise in the neck and releases the dogs guarding the lab, along with a cage full of doves. The dogs go on to maul Génessier and Christiane escapes to wander through the nearby forest, followed by doves.
While its original 1960 release was frowned upon by critics for its gory scenes, its re-release in 1986 was heavily praised, and has since earned the respect of countless critics and a 97% on rotten tomatoes. While not widely known, Eyes Without a Face has influenced countless horror movies and directors.
