Terror Eyes AKA Night School (1981)

Back in the early 1980’s the UK was rocked by fear; fear that the birth of the home video recorder was going to corrupt us all. In came the DPP (Department of Public Prosecutions) to spare us all. In the process of doing so a list of 72 movies was gathered together are referred to even to this day as Video Nasties. Terror Eyes AKA Night School made the list but was later removed from the other prosecuted movies.

Terror Eyes (a play on words) surrounds a school where one of the tutors has a tendency to be a little over familiar with his female students. While he wrestles with his past affairs, a killer is making their way round the neighbourhood dispatching local women by separating their heads from their bodies.

An awful lot of movies on the Video Nasties list do raise questions about the mentality of those making viewing decisions on, but in fairness I believe they had it pretty much right here. While aspects of the movie do seem incredibly tame by today’s standards, there is a significant feeling of menace in this movie that could have the potential to give more than a few scares. There is also a reasonably high body count, and a fair amount of prolonged menace.

I fall on the unusual side of reviewers in respect of this movie in that compared to a lot of other movies of the era I feel (when you can see it, I’ll explain later) that this is a superior offering for an American based movie. I will however concur that I do agree with 90% of other reviewers that the performance of a then unknown Rachel Ward is just diabolical, hard to believe that just two years later she would star in a television show that would eclipse most actresses careers at that time, and turn out a performance that would move the world to tears, this was of course the role of Megan in The Thorn Birds.

The film is technically missing from release across the world, the only way you are likely to see it is to come by an old (and I mean old) video cassette, or to scour the lesser known movie channels across the globe. Sadly absolutely no effort has been given to make the available prints of the movie clear, as a result the movie is incredibly hard to watch. Much of the movie is shot at night, and the lack of definition of the edges in the movie means that the darkness tends to invade more of the picture than you might like. In particular one scene in which Ward’s character is being perused you cannot see who is chasing her, not once.

The movies killings (what you can see of them) are fairly brutal; the movies score well crafted to accompany the murders, giving that touch of menace well in advance and after the killings. There are some really good moments in the film, such as when the diner owner slowly comes to discover what has happened to his waitress, there are so many false starts to this scene that when he finally makes the discovery you feel almost like your ready to explode. While at the time it did infuriate me, thinking back on the scene it’s actually a really clever plot device to build the suspense.

Rather interestingly about the movie as well as having an unexpected leading actress, you also had a rather unexpected director. Ken Hughes may not be a director that automatically flicks on light bulbs in your mind, but his previous movies included Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and James Bond spoof Casino Royale, both movies a million miles away from a video nasty slasher movie. Probably not much of a surprise but after the wrap he received from making this movie, he never worked in the movie industry again.

As I said there are lots of flaws with the movie, but there are also lots of good points too. It’s a predictable movie, but also one notch above similar movies of the time. Despite what you might hear about Terror Eyes, trust me this is one movie you need to check out for yourself, and draw your own conclusions.