Eyes of Fire

Plot synopsis:
The film takes place in the year 1750 on the American frontier during the colonial days, before the United States declared its independence. A group of pioneers narrowly escape persecution when their preacher is accused of adultery and polygamy. The preacher, Will Smythe, is accused of having an affair with a married woman, Eloise Dalton, whose husband is away hunting for food, and another woman, Leah, who is insane. Also among their group is Eloise's daughter Fanny Dalton, the couple Jewell Buchanan and Margaret Buchanan along with their daughter Cathleen, Calvin and his wife who goes by the name Sister, and their granddaughter Meg.
As the group travels farther away from their town, the threat of attack from hostile Native American tribes becomes more prevalent until the group is eventually ambushed. Calvin does not survive the attack, but the others are protected by Leah, who has used witchcraft to provide their protection. All the while the others are unaware that Leah is using magic to keep them safe. The remaining members of the group are forced to abandon their trail along the riverbank, and take cover in the woods far from man-made trails. At this time, Eloise's husband Marion Dalton returns home to find news that his wife was scheduled to be executed along with Will for affair and also learns that the two are on the run with others from the town. Marion pursues and eventually catches up to them. Leah wanders away from the group for a short while.
By this time the Shawnee Indians have caught up to the group and Marion Dalton, who speaks fluently in many tribal languages, is able to convince the Shawnee to abort the attack, at least for a short while, though Marion is certain the Shawnee will be back in bigger numbers. Leah returns covered in white feathers and Marion recognizes this as a warning from the Shawnee Indians to other members of the Shawnee tribe not to enter a nearby valley. Realizing that the Shawnee have superstitions about the valley, Marion leads the group into the valley, knowing that if the Shawnee were to return, they would not follow the pioneers into the valley because of various Native American superstitions some of the tribes have in regards to this particular valley.
Once the group settles in the deserted valley, they are safe from any and all tribes of Native Americans. Though the pioneers are no longer under the threat of attack from the Shawnee, they find a young Native American orphan on the outskirts of their camp. The pioneers are still unnerved by the previous attacks, but reluctantly bring the girl into the camp and care for her. It seems that only Will is pleased with the orphan's unexpected appearance, and he is delighted at the possibility of baptizing her into Christianity. Aside from Will, it seems the others in the group are unnerved by the orphan girl's presence. And Leah, who has an extraordinary connection to the supernatural, senses that there is something unusual about the Native American child, and Leah soon begins to have visions as she tries to uncover the motives of the orphan girl. Fanny disappears soon afterward, and her body is later found by Marion, with the help of Leah through her abilities and visions, though Fanny appears to be in a coma. Only when Fanny awakens do they realize that the warnings to stay away from the valley are founded on more than just mythology, coupled with the frightening revelation that the orphan girl is more than what she seems when the group is terrorized by an evil spirit that desires to make them all its living captives.

Tags: haunting

Review:
Taking place during the early colonization of America, "Eyes of Fire" is a remarkable hybrid of horror and mysticism within a western setting.
As they begin to start a new life, little do they know that this place is already inhabited by a devil witch and her ghastly minions.Filmed in the wilds of Missouri, Avery Crounse's wondrously offbeat gem is one of the most beautifully photographed horror films of the 80's, American or otherwise.
Brad Fiedel's score adds to the unease of the situation and gives off an otherworldly vibe to match.In spite of a low budget, the period setting feels authentic.
What a fascinating period that was, and I feel that more horror films should be set in and around that time.
Crounse certainly realizes this, as he milks the period setting and the olden days mythology for all that they're worth.I've seen many reviews deriding the special effects, which is absurd.
Boyd is strong in the role of foil, while Kathleen Crockett steals the show as Leah, a character that could have fallen into camp if not played correctly."Eyes of Fire" is right up there with "Black Rainbow" as one of the unsung genre classics of the 80's.
It's a one-of-a-kind experience in desperate need of a proper release, one which preferably restores the original "Cry Blue Sky" cut, an ultimate holy grail for me, and allows the film's brilliant photography to shine through to it's fullest extent.
The independent low-budget horror drama "Eyes of Fire" would be one of those films you'll either become attach to or simply can't fathom the fuss.
The mysteriously spooky nature of it had me thinking of the similar in vein western / horror variation "The Shadow of Chikara (1977)".A creepy folklore / witchcraft horror with absorbing atmospherics (the rich Missouri locations are alienating and suitably eerie) and a mystical layer is formed by it inspired narrative (where its told through narrated flashback) and distinctively lyrical script as we follow some western pioneers led by a reverend on the American frontier in the search of the promised land, but they stumble upon a valley that's inhabited by a devil witch and her captured souls.
While methodical and low-scale, he managed some visually breath-taking imagery of edgy horror and haunting beauty caught by the elegantly earthy and unhinged cinematography.
There are modest performances by the likes of Dennis Lipscomb, Guy Boyd, Rebecca Stanley and Kathleen Crockett in a very contemplative turn.Fascinatingly offbeat, if meandering and jaded mystical spook flick..
Eyes Of Fire is one of those wonderful little discoveries that makes seeking out obscure films so much fun.
I went in not expecting a lot and found myself absorbed in the story, the scenery (I lived in St. Louis at the time and was amazed to read in the credits it was shot in Missouri), and the overall unusual atmosphere.
While it won't scare you out of your wits, it is spooky enough that you can cuddle up with a cup of hot chocolate and get wrapped up in the story.The story follows a group of settlers that were banished from their town for being accused of witchcraft, they endure dangerous travels (going down the river and being shot at by arrows was harrowing), and end up making their home in an abandoned house in woods full of Indian spirits.
After realizing things are not going well, they cannot escape the wooded area and are tormented by strange figures that appear and suddenly disappear (the visuals are subtle yet extremely effective).
Souls trapped in trees, swirling leaves, and a witch with glowing eyes that sinks into the ground add to the chilling story.I'm not an expert in period detail, but I found the costumes, accents, and acting by all involved to be very good, if accurate.
This nice attention to detail, and the use of generally simple effects that work amazingly well keep this film at a nice spooky level.
Like a folk tale, and if you accept it as that, you'll appreciate that it takes its time on the pacing of the story and uses that to its advantage.
After all these years, I love to view it every once in a while and hope that more will discover this enduring gem.I even have the poster for Eyes Of Fire and feel I've been very lucky to have been given the opportunity of seeing this film!.
A period piece, it's set in the mid-18th century in the American colonies, before there was a United States, and is the tale of settlers encountering the supernatural in the form of a previously unexplored forest's resident evil spirit.
The story begins with adultery committed by a minister, somewhat hammily played by Dennis Lipscomb, and a settler's wife, resulting in the cuckolded husband taking his children off into the forest where they meet up with a strange girl who shows them much they never knew before about the ways of the land.Crounse gets his setting just right and also does a great job fusing the real with the fantastic--not always an easy thing to do.
One of the absolutely critical ingredients in any fantasy film--whether high fantasy, sword and sorcery, dark fantasy or horror--is atmosphere, and in that this movie excels.
The brooding forest scenes are superb, making the viewer feel that at any moment the trees could come alive and snatch you up right from where you're standing.Aside from Lipscomb, the other actors are excellent.
The momentum of the story is escape from a known evil to an unknown evil and that drives the movie to its strong finish.Highly recommended..
The forest with its many "trees" is so vividly filmed; I never realized simple things like trees, bushes, and pure earth could be made so threatening!
The film is just drenched in atmosphere:  The haunting sounds of the woods; the often off-kilter camera angles; and the excellent narration by a young lady with an accent so thick you could cut it with a knife!
Many of the most beautiful moments in the film involve her, like where Leah crawls into a barrel with the children to keep out of the rain, and a rainbow appears beside it; and Leah playing joyfully in the field of feathers.
They compliment the film, rather than overrun it like many films today.This is a really great film to watch late at night; it has the atmosphere of one of those low-budget chillers network stations would show in the early morning hours before the age of the infomercial, only with more originality.
This motion picture is perhaps the most bizarre film I have ever seen for such a low budget.
The film is about a group of western pioneers set in the early American Frontier around 1750, who travel into an uncharted land and forest and are haunted by evil spirits living in the trees.
Director Avery Crounse and his team of special effects rely on old fashion suspense, which is way better than some of the films we have today.
It's a shame that this film isn't around anymore, it should be released to DVD and it's obvioius that films like The Blair Witch Project and Ravenous ripped off this film.
Eyes of Fire is highly recommended for fans of early ghost stories..
In the case of Eyes of Fire, this isn't because the movie is all that hot, but because I haven't been able to get the darn thing out of my brain since I saw it.Plot: It's been a while, but right off the top of my head, Eyes of Fire is set during days of early American life.
But he ignores his Native American tourguide, and chooses to set up shop in a spooky, foreboding area of the woods which is supposedly cursed by evil spirits.After that, I can't really remember too much about the plot, other than that it dissolves into nothingness, and in its place we get quite a bit nightmarish images of ghosts, slime, and spectral zap rays, all backed with a lot of screaming.I tend to remain fascinated with movies that seem to exist in their own world of reality, where our rules of logic don't always apply.
These don't always have to be horror movies; Over the years I can think of several examples of these kind of films; Gummo, Elephant, The Toolbox Murders (the 70's one), and Impulse (the meg tilly one) all come to mind off hand.
These movies all have a worldview that depressed me enough that I just cant shake the characters and their environment afterwards.Eyes of Fire is like that, really.
This singularly distinct horror film concerns a colonial minister, his married mistress, and a group of their friends and supporters who flee the wrath of the people in their village and travel via raft up the Hudson river to what will eventually be upstate New York, staying one step ahead of savage indians to settle in a strange valley.
There's a weird dis-ease in the atmosphere of this place, one that sets it apart from most films like this.
I recommend this to anyone trying to find something different in horror films.
It could be best compared to some of the current western horror films that have come out in the last couple of years.
Most of those films have an outright horror edge and don't build the suspense like this does.
If you find it at your local video store and are the type to be intrigued by the title and video box, you will enjoy it.The poor lighting and practically non-existent special effects actually make the mood more effective, although it may be slow going for some horror movie fans.Some movies in a similar vein are The Company of Wolves, el Topo- if you can find it, and Ravenous (1999).
This is a very low-budget movie about demons in the American countryside two hundred years ago.
The movie is too academic, as if it had been made to partially fulfill the requirements of a Master's in American Folklore, and most of the performances would fit right into a small-town little-theatre production, but those qualities help to set the movie apart from others.
It's rather like "The Blair Witch Project" set in period, but with real spirits and a real story.
(I personally witnessed him put together special effects on a USC student film in 1981, on a budget of about $100 that looked like thousands.
If you look carefully at the effects here, you'll see how well-realized they are for such little money.) Anyway, the effort in this gem was well-placed in the story, the direction and the acting.
Interesting atmospheric indie horror film (THE GUARDIAN PART 0).
Just good, certainly for a low budget independent movie.
The story, about a bunch of quirky people cast out of an uptight colonial town and decide to live in a cursed area of the forest, was really captivating in some part, while slightly laughable in other parts.
Some of the horror elements in EYES OF FIRE now look like something from your average MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGER episode, which is unfortunate because the rest is fairly good (acting, location, mood...).
The only really bad thing in EOF is the ending (I don't think they had any idea how to end it) and the "surprised ending." Geez!Thinking about EYES OF FIRE, I'm shocked to see how much of William Friedkin's THE GUARDIAN owes to this small budget horror film.
In EYES OF FIRE, the evil element is a tree (sculpted with human faces on it, like a totem), guarded by a creature who looks like a walking tree, and who controls the spirits of the people it killed/possessed (shown as naked actors).
This is basically the story in THE GUARDIAN, except that it takes place in modern times.If you're into obscure horror films, like I am, make sure to check out EYES OF FIRE.
It's an interesting, if not all too successful, atmospheric period horror film..
Back in the early 80's when other horror films were taken over the theatres, Eyes Of Fire played for a while and then was thrown on the shelf to be forgotten.
(Hey Anchor Bay...let this be your new project.) I feel that several other movies have gotten their storylines from Eyes Of Fire.
They reach a valley, where an evil witch and the spirits of ancient settlers live in the trees and haunt the newcomers.
"Eyes of Fire" is a great tale of witch, very mystic, but with a weak conclusion.
It is a low-budget movie, the special effects are very poor, but the story is original and very creepy.
Once the folk start encountering all this though, plot takes a backseat to a spectacular array of very surreal and thoroughly scary special effects, colour filters, hallucinatory nightmares, unnerving musical sound design and all mannered spook-house atmospherics.
I recognize that Eyes of Fire is a wonderful film and continue to view it as well formed.
That is all I have to say about that.This film makes lovely use of simple film processes that are common to horror of its period, but differs in its use of setting, its use of lighting, and makeup.
The script is the best written in a recent horror film, and is executed magnificently by the actors.
The entire concept is original: who else has managed a pre-20th century horror film with a completely straight handling?
The directing is excellent, and the characters act like pioneers, act tough and stupid, ignorant and noble, by turns.While I love the film, I despise its message..
For a truly original idea - an exploration of dark early American frontier mythology - this movie failed due to one overriding problem: a lack of story focus.
The basic barebones that I picked up on the plot is that a preacher, aided by the mysterious witch-like powers of his teenage daughter, steals from a local town and heads off on the river with his mistress and some others to the "promised land" where he can form a new Christian society.
However, once they arrive in an abandoned Indian encampment in the deserted woods, they fall prey to some forest witches or ghosts.It is at this point that the story completely confused me.
"Eyes of Fire" is a curious oddity in the already curious universe of 80s horror movies.
On one hand, it's truly incomprehensible that this film isn't more well-known or doesn't have a much larger cult-following, because it is an atmospheric and genuinely unsettling tale with an original plot, a unique setting and a handful of downright disturbing moments.
On the other hand, however, it's rather easy to see why "Eyes of Fire" is obscure and almost forgotten, as it's a slow-brooding and intelligently scripted ghost tale that got released in the middle of an era when horror audiences were mainly just demanding for brainless teen-slashers with lots of gratuitous T&A and extreme violence.
Well, the least you can say is that "Eyes of Fire" is overripe for rediscovery and Avery Crounse should be acknowledged as a competent writer/director, even though he only made three films (and this is by far the only one worth seeking out).
The story is inventively set in the year 1750 and narrated via a group of children that are found hidden away in a ramshackle cabin near the American/Canadian border (back then still referred to as "French territory").
I have a personal weakness for good old-fashioned clichés, and "Eyes of Fire" features a delightful monologue around a campfire where Guy Boyd's character explains how the spilled blood of innocent natives eventually clits together in the underground and forms a powerful and vengeful demon.
An hour later we came upon a faded VHS box entitled "Eyes of Fire."  We decided to give it a shot, the story sounded intriguing and the premise interesting.
The film is about a group of early American settlers who leave their village for the frontier (due to adultery, polygamy, heresy, and a myriad other Puritanical No-nos) and find themselves in the midst of strange mud-covered, naked spirits that frolic in the woods and wreak havoc on the settlers.
Watching  "Eyes of Fire" really FEELS like having a nightmare...you have to see it to know what I mean.
That's nothing compared to the supernatural dangers that plague the valley they have settled in.The film has good special effects and the story is interesting, but there are too many side plots (at least one of which has no real impact on the story and could have been completely left out) and towards the end it really falls apart.
Characters end up doing things without any logic and a twist at the very very end of the film makes absolutely no sense.
It's a pleasantly quirky and unpredictable little horror movie, with interesting characters and an unusual plot.
Avery Crounse's little known and unfairly hidden gem "Eyes of Fire" is such a picture.
However familiar the story may be, the film manages to surprise the viewer with good performances (Crockett's being especially potent), strong direction and camerawork, and an undeniably creepy soundtrack.
Although marred by a confusing story and often lethargic pacing, this compellingly peculiar horror-Western oddity nonetheless casts an effectively spooky and arresting spell on the viewer thanks to Avery Crounse's stylish direction (Crounse also wrote the idiosyncratic script), a creepily off-kilter and nightmarish atmosphere, plenty of stunningly bizarre and beautiful visuals, Brad Fiedel's fine, eerie score and the sheer fascinating weirdness of the outré story.
An atypical '80s American horror film, insomuch that it is set in "olden times", concerning a bunch of travellers who have to contend with wood-demons, assorted spirits, and possession.
The film is different enough to be worth a look, and despite a low, low budget, it achieves some remarkably good special effects which put a lot of higher-budgeted offerings from the same period to shame.
The film also evokes a dream-like atmosphere which is pretty compelling in places.