Eye in the Labyrinth is not your average Giallo...and to be honest, I'm not really sure that it really is a Giallo; but Giallo or not, despite some problems, this is certainly a very interesting little film. I'm hesitant to call it a Giallo because the film doesn't feature most of the things that make these films what they are; but many genre entries break the mould, and this would seem to be one of them. The film doesn't feature any brutal murders as many Giallo's do, but this is made up for with a surreal atmosphere and a plot just about confusing enough to remain interesting for the duration. The plot seems simple enough in that it focuses on a doctor who is murdered by Julie, his patient who, for some reason, she sees him as her lover and father and is offended when he walks out on her. We then relocate to a big house lived in by a number of people, but nothing is really what it seems as there are a number of secrets surrounding various events that happened before Julie's arrival...
The film seems to be professing something about how the mind is like a labyrinth. This never really comes off, and I preferred to just sit back and enjoy what was going on rather than worrying about what point (if any) the film is trying to make. Eye in the Labyrinth is directed by Mario Caiano, the director behind the excellent Night of the Doomed some years earlier. He doesn't create the atmosphere as well in this film as he did in the earlier one; but the surreal aspects of the story come off well, and the mystery is always kept up which stops the film from becoming boring. The film stars Rosemary Dexter, who provides eye candy throughout and also delivers a good performance. Most of the rest of the cast aren't really worth mentioning, with the exceptions of Adolfo Celi, who is good as the villain of the piece and Alida Valli, whom cult fans will remember from a whole host of excellent cult flicks. The film does explain itself at the end; which is lucky as I'm sure I'm not the only viewer who was more than a little confused by then! Overall, this may not be classic stuff; but its good enough and worth seeing.

Now don't get me wrong. If you need an insightful summary of everything that been wrong with the history of human civilization as well as a flawless path to brighter future for mankind, who better to turn to than a comedian and practitioner of pop culture? If you need a healthy dose of all the solid, sound reasons why religion has outlived it's usefulness then turn to Sagan or Dawkins, not BILL MAHER for God's(?) sake! That's a good point in and of itself. Maher dismisses our religious past as a neurological disorder conveniently ignoring how his entire society, art and science is rooted in it.
In this film, he relies heavily on his keenly-honed skill set of irony and cynicism to make his point while attempting to appear erudite and wise. Unfortunately, his intellect isn't up to the task.
Maher makes us laugh but is clearly not the brightest bulb in the box. As an example, he responds to an interviewee's (and I use the term loosely as they were clearly all "ambushees") assertion that the existence of Jesus is historical fact with a deadpan "No, it's not" followed by a long stare meant to convey contempt at the subject's naivety (a device nauseatingly overused in this film). The problem is that the person was correct and Maher dead wrong in his assertion that Jesus is mentioned only in what he considers to be the historically- suspect gospels. I guess Mr. Maher has never read the contemporary historian Josephus.
But the masses will flock to this pseudo-documentary as they do the fictional works of other intellectual giants like Michael Moore, and they will loudly bray and guffaw (they certainly did at my showing).
It's doubly telling, however, that the loudest and most mule-like braying occurred during the approximately 70% of the running time that the film devoted to it's anti-Christian tirade while the audience was wholly mute during the token 10% devoted to criticizing the self-described Religion of Peace. Hmmm. Either criticism of Islam is off-limits to the hip and liberal target audience or they were just afraid to laugh. Very telling, either way..