Donald Cammells take on the psycho-thriller,is an absorbing,offbeat,beautifully made affair.Opening with a breathtaking sequence,as a woman is murdered in her chic house by an unseen assailant.Cammell uses extreme close ups of the killers eye,slow motion,and a weird pulsating music track,to blistering effect.This is a stunningly directed film,with a script by Cammell and his wife to match.Thankfully the cast are up to the challenge.Raging Bull's Cathy Moriarty gives her best ever performance in this,as the wife who not only has to discover her husbands infidelity,but also his terrible secret.Alan Rosenberg also impresses as Moriarty's ex,giving a sympathetic performance for such a pathetic character.The revelation here though is David Keith,who is quite simply awesome and believable as a man who appears normal,but inside is a mass of raging insanity.The flashback scenes that appear sporadically as the film progresses are clever and well written,gradually revealing Paul Whites mindset.Although the film isn't overly violent,one of the murders is disturbing in the extreme.*POSSIBLE-SPOILER* Also nasty is the scene where Moriarty discovers the secret her husband has hidden under the bathtub.The climax as Paul,clad in warpaint and wearing half a ton of dynamite,hunts his wife is riveting,with an explosive ending in a disused quarry.Another good feature of the film is the stunning location work,showing Tucson Arizona as an almost alien but starkly beautiful landscape.Criminally underseen and underrated,this is stunning cinema and one of the best films of the eighties.
Review of White of the Eye
