Bedroom Eyes (1986)

So much average

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

This is a rather unpleasant and needlessly protracted suspenser wherein is to be found emphasis only upon sex instead of suspense. An attempt is made by director William Fruet to give a light tone to the film, but a surfeit of coarsened humour operates against the plot line from its inception. Stockbroker Harry Ross (Kenneth Gilman), following completion of his customary evening jogging session in Toronto, is seized by a voyeuristic urge to peek into an open window of a residence, at which time he observes a type of fetishistic sexual activity that may best be described as drab, but apparently of more than adequate interest for Ross to prod him into additional viewing during the following evening. On display for him during this follow-up observation is a probable murder although such an event is bereft of any details for Ross's excitable narration to his newly-established confidante, an attractive female psychiatrist, Alixe Barnes (Dayle Haddon). Meanwhile, a zealous crew of police detectives is searching after a suspect for the now confirmed killing, and their efforts give Ross no end of displeasure, since he was, after all, involved solely as a peeping tom. As the forces of law and order are floundering, they spend a great deal of time trailing the frightened Ross. Alixe tries to hypnotise Harry to determine the extent of his involvement, since she supports him as an innocent and believes that through hypnosis he can overcome the drawback of not having a credible reason for peering through the concerned window. A poorly constructed script infects a cast led by an ungainly Gilman whose acting range here is not devolved beyond an ever-present deer in headlamps appearance. Director Fruet has done much better work than this piece, in particular as a scenarist, but there is very little imaginative feeling to this film that can be recommended only if one has absolutely nothing else to view. Oddly, the work developed a following that eventually led to a sequel which, in any case, was not able to provide much of a successor plot or a form that could improve upon this silly movie.

Having established his admiration for the master with the Psycho-for-Dummies of "Funeral Home", here Fruet serves up Rear Window with a dash of Spellbound: jogging voyeur Kenneth Gilman falls in with comely psychiatrist Dayle Haddon, before his kink gets him caught up in all kinds of shady intrigue. Needless to say, the film doesn't benefit from the comparison. It's frustrating how they keep pulling us out of the characters' point of view with cheat flashbacks or overdoses of stupid detective, and the pacing and cinematography are both damagingly pedestrian. By the more, er, modest yardstick of Robert Lantos sex schlock, however, it succeeds pretty well; at times the voyeurism theme actually feels like something more than an excuse to show pretty women undressing, and Gilman and Haddon are genuinely appealing and show genuine chemistry. So it's almost tragic that the filmmakers had to boil it all down to a murderous ex-hooker who thinks that "all men are pimps" - not just a stupid device, but a shamefully irrelevant one, unless of course they're working a moral angle, something along the lines of 'being a deviant will get you killed,' which I could also live without.

Made and acted (amateurishly) by unknowns, this bland thriller sets up its contrived main situation right from the opening sequence - and then goes nowhere you haven't been before (voyeurism, murder, the wrong man suspected, etc). All-too-obviously (and all-too-intentionally) reminiscent of "Rear Window", but there's just no comparison. (**)

Don't be fooled by the title, for this isn't another piece of direct-to-video sleaze. What you will find instead is a fun, fast-moving film that is admittedly silly, but so what? It's no classic to be sure, and certainly there are few (if any) surprises, but it's a fun movie that tries for laughs instead of thrills, and works as a result. Open your mind, and give "Bedroom Eyes" a look.