Released in 1987,White of the Eyeisone of those obscure genre works that few people tend to remember these days, which is a shame— it is a truly unique piece that is often cited as a rare example of a Southwesterngiallo. The film was directed byDonald Cammell, a Scottish artist of cult fame, who also made a name for himself in cinema with just a few titles, most notably his directorial debut,Performance(1970), which he created together with the iconicNicolas Roeg, andDemon Seed(1977).White of the Eyeis set in the exquisitely lit Valley of the Sun in Arizona, where a series of murders occur, shaking the life of one particular family, when the wife starts suspecting that her husband might be the culprit. On the surface, the story seems to fit the myriad of paranoidthrillers that were so widely produced in the ‘80sand early ’90s. It’s the film’s style, though, that makes all the difference here, turning it intoan almost arthouse horror film which features unexpected mystical motives and some pretty relevant ideasabout the illusion of trust.
What is ‘White of the Eye’ About?
Whensomeone starts murdering rich women in a small Arizona town, a young husband and father, Paul White (David Keith),becomes an unlikely suspect because of specific tires on his car that match the traces on the crime scene. Even though his connection to the murders doesn’t seem very tangible, it’s enough to make his wife, Joan (Cathy Moriarty), suspect that the man she’s been with for ten years might havea dark side she never knew about.The story switches back between the present and the past, where Joan is traveling with her boyfriend, Mike (Alan Rosenberg), when she encounters Paul for the first time. In the present, while her husband installs sound systems and serves as eye candy for bored female clients, Joan suddenly bumps into Mike again, which also prompts her to feel gradually more and more unsettled — just whenthe killer strikes again.
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White of the Eyestarts with avery memorable opening kill scene, which is highly stylized and brutal. A woman comes home from a shopping trip and gets attacked, with the episode featuring blood splattering around a kitchen table, a slow-motion headbashing, and a very unexpected image of a goldfish flopping inside a rib rack that was left on a counter.The film gets progressively weirder as it moves forward, descending into utter chaos and madness in the finale. Cammell and his co-writerChina Cammell(who was his wife at the time) employ a seeminglyfamiliar thriller plotand then turn it into something completely unexpected, to the point where it is hard to define the film’s genre. While bothPerformanceandDemon Seedfeature the motive of psychological turmoil played out inconfined spaces,White of the Eyeexpands its mind games to be played out in the vast expanse of a desert.
This Brutal and Unusual Horror Uses the Editing Tricks to Play Mind Games with the Viewers, Too
The Arizona location plays a significant role inWhite of the Eyefrom the beginning, since the movie opens and starts withpanoramic shots of a big city which contrast with the small town the main events are taking place in. In the world of the film, this contrast is constantly emphasized — from Moriarty’s passionately delivered monologue that involves her hissing frustratingly that she is from a big city and, therefore, doesn’t care about the small-town gossip, to the idea that it’s just easier to hide your madness and dark urges in a city jungle where no one pays attention to anyone. Butthis setting that signifies closeness to nature also serves as the catalyst for the conflictbetween Paul and Mike that starts brewing even before thelove triangle comes into play.
While the two guys representtwo sides of masculinity, thereal source of tension between them is how they see and connect to the worldaround them. Mike, who also comes from a big city, claims that he has Apache roots, but Paul just laughs at him. Paul himself uses sound and his perception of it as a way to put the world in order. But the supposed mystic abilities and theconnection to unknown powersthat linger in the wilderness lead both men to explore the extent of what they’re really capable of in terms of cruelty and violence. Just like with his two previous major works,Cammell relies a lot on the intricate use of cinematography and sound to create a sense of tension and doubt. While the camera performs creative pirouettes reminiscent of a classic Giallo and the imagery drowns in flashy neon colors,the soundtrack, created byNick Masonof Pink Floyd andRick Fennof 10cc, remains deceptively quiet, more melancholic than openly menacing.
But it’sCammell’s very particular way of editing that turnsWhite of the Eyeinto a truly avant-garde horrorby way of a rapid cross-cutting technique, which he first tried inPerformance. Here, he uses brief inserts of images into certain scenes, thus emphasizing the inherent strangeness of the world, filled with motives Cammell seems to be partly drawing from his own experience, including hisacquaintance with occultistAleister Crowley, his turbulent relationship with his wife, and his battle with depression that led to his suicide in 1996. He also utilizes the psychological effect of such editing: as the audience, we don’t always immediately process what we’ve really seen in these episodes, because the inserts are so brief. This allows Cammell to elaborate on the film’s major theme, which becomes its most terrifying aspect —the disturbing idea that we might not truly know or understand the people closest to us, or even the reality that surrounds us.
White of the Eye
