EYES WITHOUT A FACE (1960)
Horror melodrama in which a plastic surgeon’s beautiful daughter is scarred in an accident, prompting him to kidnap a girl with plans to remove her undamaged face and use the skin to replace his daughter’s.
This is, as far as I know, the only horror movie of the French New Wave and is easily one of the most beautiful horror movies. Despite its undeniable elegance, it’s quite gory with amazing special effects, notable for a scene in which the surgeon removes someone’s face on-camera. It’s a wonderful nightmare, memorable and haunting. It’s really amazing when elegant, philosophical directors make horror movies. I feel that way about Bergman’s HOUR OF THE WOLF and Kubrick’s THE SHINING and EYES WIDE SHUT as well as Polanski’s ROSEMARY’S BABY and the many horror movies of David Cronenburg and Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch. I love it because horror is such a meaningful and powerful thing and yet “horror” is an often-maligned genre, to the point that they try to call these movies “thrillers” so they don’t sound low-brow. I hate that distinction.
