Eyeball and the Lure of the Theater
Written by Joe D on November 7th, 2007Last year I was lucky enough to make it to a whole bunch of the GRINDHOUSE screenings at the New Beverly Theater on Beverly Blvd. in Los Angeles. Quentin Tarantino had programmed a months worth of films from his personal collection, mainly 70’s Gridhouse fare and they were great! Such a treat to see cool films on 35mm in a theater with like minded film lovers! One of the films I saw was Umberto Lenzi’s Eyeball or Gatti rossi in un labirinto di vetro, it’s not a great film, but to see it with an audience! What a treat, they loved it! It’s full of shocks, and gags and eyeball gouging goop! It played so well in a theater surrounded by people that screamed, laughed, jumped and were grossed out, I loved it! Movies are meant to be experienced in a communal setting, the electric thrills running through the audience are a big part of the experience. This movie really illustrated that fact to me because as I said it’s not that great, if I had watched it on a DVD by myself I might have thought it crap! But with an audience a whole different enchilada! So I hope you can get the opportunity to see it the way it was meant to be seen. on a big screen surrounded by shrieking moviegoers. Also it has a great score by the genius Bruno Nicolai!
p.s. the trailer is NSFW, some nudity(boobs) and gore.