In the opening scene of the 1960 French horror Eyes Without a Face Louise (Alida Valli) helps disposes of a corpse by dumping the body into a small body of water. This initial scene opens with lighthearted jazzy music which only helps to increase the sense of horror of what you watching. This music plays over and over again each time Louise drives her car seeking the next victim for Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) to attempt a Heterograft where he removes the skin off of a victim’s face in order to graft it on to his daughter, Christiane’s (Edith Scob) deformed and burnt face.

After what can only be a failed attempt at a grafting Louise manages to trick Edna Gruber (Juliette Mayniel) to come to the doctor’s villa in the suburbs with the offer of a room to rent. Once there Génessier manages to sedate Edna and we witness the Heterograft procedure. 58 years after this scene was initially filmed comparisons can not help but be made with the recent “torture porn” (a term which I hate) films. The grafting scene could easily be taken right out of one of the Hostel or Saw movies and it is only the lesser amount of blood that differentiates it from the modern day movies. We witness in full gore the scalpel sliding under the skin of the face and the Doctor pulling the skin off.

Unfortunately for Christiane the skin graft does not take and another victim will be needed. In the time between the kidnapping of Edna and Paulette Mérodon (Beatrice Altariba) who is set to be the the next victim we discover that Christiane does not seem to fully realize on at least some level just what her father is doing each time. It is only with the eventual death of Edna that decides that she would rather die than go through the process again. The kidnapping has already been set in motion though and Paulette ends up on the Doctor’s table which leads up to the final showdown between Paulette, Christiane, Louise and the Doctor. There is much more going on in addition to this all but Eyes without a Face is the story of Christiane more than anything.

In addition to the extreme surgery scene and the quirky kidnapping scenes the one other feature of this movie that truly stands out is the mask which Christiane wears through the majority of the movie. The mask is very similar to the pale blank face masks but somehow through it Edit Scob is able to convey emotions. 20 years later when John Carpenter was creating Halloween he even mentioned how the mask from here influenced him in the creation of the Face. The movie also was a strong influence on Jesús Franco which can be seen in his movie Gritos en la noche, and also eventually his own version called Faceless.

It is amazing how well Eyes Without a Face has been able to stand the test of time. It is a wonderful creepy dark horror thriller that entertains on many levels.

Be sure to check back tomorrow for Day 15 of the 31 Days of Horror.