"Eyeball" isn't the best film to use as an example to state that the Giallo is the greatest sub genre in horror, and it's neither the ideal effort to claim Umberto Lenzi was one of the greatest European directors of the 20th century. "Eyeball" is, in fact, a rather mediocre Giallo and definitely one of Lenzi's least remarkable films, but it nevertheless remains an entertaining treat for fans of sleazy, gory and trashy Euro-horror of the 1970's. Lucio Fulci may have had a bizarre fetish for eyeball-gore, but it was Lenzi who revolved an entire Giallo-storyline on it! Multiple eyeballs are being removed from their sockets here, so you can rest assured this film will be nasty enough to satisfy even the most demanding gorehounds. The rest of the film is actually not so praiseworthy at all. The plot is silly and incoherent, there's a severe lack of tension building and the dialogs are almost laughably ridiculous. After the discovery of the first murder victim, a woman who was found with multiple stabbing wounds in her chest and the left eyeball missing from the socket, a rookie police officer ask the autopsy doctor if he thinks the murderer is a sadist. Well, what do you think? The script is full of stupid remarks and dialogs like that, and they don't exactly increase the plausibility of the story. The plot introduces a group of tourists on a sightseeing tour in beautiful Barcelona. There's a couple of lesbian lovers, an adulterous businessman and his lovely secretary, an odd-behaving priest and a handful of other disposable American travelers. There also is a maniacal killer on the loose in the city and he/she is inevitably linked with the passengers of the tour bus, because his/her disguise is a red raincoat identical to the ones distributed among the tourists and the victims are either members of the bus party or locals that were in contact with them. Lenzi provides his script with a couple of admirable red herrings and misleading plot twists, but "Eyeball" sadly never becomes as engaging as a true Giallo should be. Especially the tourists' calm and careless reactions to the murders are very unbelievable. Even after several members of the group were found killed and their bodies mutilated, the remaining ones continue to separate themselves from the rest and some of them even attend cheerful Flamingo-dancing parties like nothing happened at all. Can you imagine people to react like this during a real-life situation? I bet real tourists would lock themselves up in their rooms and remain there until they can hop on the first available plane back home. Bruno Nicolai's score is catchy and enchanting, but I can't help thinking I heard the exact same tune somewhere before in another Italian horror, crime or western flick. Lenzi often recycles plot-ideas, ingenious camera angles and music so I wouldn't be surprised if the same score was already used in one of his previous films. The denouement is utterly silly and far-fetched but, hey, it was nearly impossible to predict and that's all that matters. The acting performances are terrible but at least the female stars compensate their lack of talent by showing off their ravishing naked bodies. Recommended in case you're a sucker for Italian cult flicks, all others beware.
