Saturday 13 June 2020

Death Has Blue Eyes (1976)


Despite its giallo sounding title, this Tigon released, Nico Mastorakis directed WTFery, instead spans sexploitation, political thriller, buddy movie and horror, as two freewheeling con men get caught up with a blonde psychic who has been targeted for political assassination, after apparently witnessing a murder and inadvertently reading the mind of the killer. Death has Blue Eyes begins as an ode to male hedonism, as the two protagonists party, cheat and hustle their way around 1970s Greece, smashing plates, getting drunk and encountering butt naked housemaids, sweary parrots and sexy female racing drivers along the way. Somehow such amorous hi-jinks (notable for featuring as much male nudity as female), eventually give way to a film that antisapates The Fury and Scanners when it comes to using violent telekinesis as a plot device. The blonde with the titular blue eyes having the ability to yank pursuers off motorbikes, cause people to burst into flames and even be used as a human bomb.

Death Has Blue Eyes is very much a young, horny, guy's movie, with Mastorakis filling the film with fast cars, loose women, Cold War era espionage, pop culture references (Serpico, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), and above all else the male fantasy of flying through life by the seat of your pants, devoid of any worldly responsibility. Pursuit by helicopter, motorbike and numerous car chases hint at Mastorakis' future in 1980s direct to video action movies, but as anyone who encountered Death Has Blue Eyes on UK video (where it was known as 'Para Psychics') will testify, this groovy, hyper-sexual, genre cocktail is a far cry from Nick the Greek's later, more conventional American fare.

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