Review by Chris Rennirt
Horror in the Eyes of the Beholder!
Five Across the Eyes is a truly horrible movie. However, before you interpret that, stop and think. Shouldn’t all good horror movies be horrible? Well, Five Across the Eyes is indeed truly horrible in just about every way. As I watched the movie, I wanted to dislike it, but somehow I couldn’t. Somehow, I liked it anyway, despite its flaws, its sometimes annoying dialogue, its frequent sub-par acting, and stomach-churning acts of depravity.
What’s it about? It’s simple. A group of teenage girls are out, at night, driving on a remote Tennessee road called “_________.” That’s right. I removed the name of the road. I decided that it gives too much away. In an earlier draft of this review, I had also explained the meaning of this movie’s bizarre title, Five Across the Eyes. However, on second thought, I remembered how much mystery and allure there is in a good title. So, I removed that too. I remembered how we sometimes watch movies mostly to see what the title means. This title, for sure, gets my highest score for one that sucks you in!
Anyway, back to the teenage girls, they become hopelessly lost on that road in the middle of nowhere. But wait! That’s just the start of the horror to come…of course. There are car chases and more car chases, lots of screaming, yelling, cursing, vomiting, and violence (violence which may not be gratuitous, under the circumstances), and overkill unlike you’ve seen before. Truly appreciating this movie requires watching it till the end; trust me on that! Here, the climax of revenge is what we always wish for in such movies but rarely see. The ending is odd, sick, well earned by the victim, and the most common-sense way to solve the problem. Yes, rarely do we see such morbid intelligence in a movie of this kind. Compared to the typical dumb victims in most horror films, the girls in this movie are geniuses. No, I’m not telling you the ending, but I’m almost feeling guilty making you more curious to see it. I should probably tell you everything to make you not want to see it.
The film is certainly as low budget as it gets, but that’s its charm. The acting is bad at times, but the actors have the excuse of likely never having acted before. The dialogue is sometimes bad, but likely no worse than what real people (in this case, teenagers) really say when they’re out driving, at night, lost, in the middle of nowhere. The film is dark and grainy, sometimes making it difficult to know what’s going on, even when the camera is on it; however, as the viewer, we get the feeling that we’re lucky to be seeing it at all. The camerawork is a shaky mess of ultra-realistic, real-time action that could arguably be called more coincidence than planning, but again, that’s the charm. With such frenetic movement (car chases and running on foot), the viewer becomes as nauseated as the victims in the movie. It’s what we see and don’t see, seemingly by chance, through the lens of a handheld camera that, again, that makes the movie terrifying. What we don’t see on the screen is seen more horrifically in our minds. (A scene with the toolbox dental job comes to mind here, making my teeth ache just remembering!) As a witness, we are treated to more or less, with off-screen screams and groans; other times we see what’s arguably too much. Oddly (or maybe expected of horror fans), Five Across the Eyes makes us want more with front row seats. As a result, it’s one of the rare films that can also achieve the opposite–make us feel bad about being horror fans…maybe. Imagine that!
Considering the simple plot, carried mainly by realism, realism, and more realism, any such movie polished by Hollywood could not have sustained itself beyond the first few minutes. Hollywood would have made it look too polished for its singular brutal purpose–to be brutally horrible for the sake of being brutally horrible. There are no redeeming moments; there is nothing to be learned; there is nothing to make any normal person feel good about having watched it. It is purely and simply a vile and disgusting film. But a “vile and disgusting” horror film may not be as bad as it sounds.
It’s easy to criticize Five Across the Eyes because of its ultra-low budget alone, with its vile and disgusting intensity taking a back seat for consideration. With this in mind (and in the spirit of my own compensatory philosophy of review writing), I changed my own initial lower score, remembering how its crudeness, from a lower budget, really makes it better anyway, for what it is. With more money, there’s no telling what directors Greg Swinson and Ryan Thiessen might have done. But lots of people have done a lot less with a lot more money.
I suspect that most people will not like Five Across the Eyes, no matter what. Most people will not admit that they like it, even if they do. Surely, some will even curse me later for giving them enough curiosity to watch it at all, to spend even a moment considering it, even a pittance of money renting it, let alone buying it. If you do watch it, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Somehow, I liked Five Across the Eyes, despite the fact that it’s a horrible movie about horrible things that people probably shouldn’t be watching anyway. However again, maybe the best horror movies should actually be as horrible as this one, if not worse.
Five Across the Eyes is a true feast only for the most devoted horror junkies–those unconcerned about the little things that make a movie less than perfect, less than Hollywood, and perhaps, more refreshingly, far from typical. If you are one of the uncommon fans who fall into this niche, then sit back and enjoy (with guilty pleasure aplenty) this film that goes off the beaten path, literally, into places you may never want to go again.
Rocket Rating – 6.5
Chris Rennirt is a movie critic and writer in Louisville, Kentucky, as well as editor in chief at Space Jockey Reviews. He has been a judge at many film festivals, including Macabre Faire Film Festival and Crimson Screen Film Fest, and he attends horror and sci-fi conventions often. Chris’ movie reviews, articles, and interviews appear in Effective Magazine and are published regularly on Space Jockey Reviews.