Through the Eyes of a Killer (1992)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This movie was a creepy but excellent thriller. I came across this film yesterday when I was desperate for something to watch and it looked interesting. I'm really glad I watched it. Marg Helgenberger, is excellent as Laurie Fisher, a young designer who falls in love with her contractor.When Laurie Fisher decides to buy a totally trashed apartment (you should see the bathtub), and renovate it she hires Ray Bellano. Not long after she hires him they fall in love. But she then realizes that he isn't what she thought he was.As time goes on she realizes that he is a vicious violet rapist, sociopathic liar, and nasty person. Then weird and terrifyingly horrible things happen, she is being stalked and almost gets killed and her friends get killed. Then she discovers the truth about him and the house she lives in.

After discovering her boyfriend (played by Pantoliano) has had an affair, Helgenberger moves into a dilapidated apartment and has Richard Dean Anderson renovate it. Predictably, she becomes casually involved with Anderson, but he has other ideas. I should also mention there is a mysterious piece of glass in an eye symbol that is etched into one of her windows of which she (and Anderson) seem to be in awe.Helgenberger is very beautiful in this suspense thriller and she is a good actress. Richard Dean Anderson plays the volatile builder and David Marshall Grant does a fine job in the role of Helgenberger's friend. This is good made-for-TV material and I recommend watching it, as it is a little different that more of the pedestrian ones I have seen lately.

This film is what keeps me coming back to the Lifetime Movie Network screaming "I want more!!!"Plot? Who needs it?Character development? What's that?Richard Dean Anderson? Yes, please! Give me more of that mullet.Anyway, our good friend RDA is some kind of handyman hired to do some work fixing up this chick's apartment (I can't recall the actress' name).What happens next? Let's just say that RDA takes his work very seriously. And by serious I mean super evil!!He totally builds walls within the walls of this woman's apartment. He spies on her all the time, and kills a bunch of her friends.Why doesn't she hear him rummaging around the inside of her walls like a drunken squirrel? Who cares! This is good stuff.Not only does he live inside the walls, but he also builds elaborate metal doors that he uses to trap her inside her own apartment. You read right...trap her inside her own apartment!That's crazy! That's scary! That's so Lifetime!Does she escape? I won't say...just watch...if you DARE!!!!

This is about average for TV fare and belongs on Lifetime Movies for Women. The performances are the best part of the work, probably. Marg Helgenberger is a delight to look at with her wide blue eyes and model's bone structure and her cute belly and saucy rump. Her talent as an actress is modest but that's good enough. The guy who plays Roy more successfully inhabits his character though. Unlike Helgenberger he seems not to be playing himself but rather a role. The role itself isn't too original: fantasy number three, sub a, in which a classy woman acquires a gardener or, in this case, an unlicensed architect, who unexpectedly makes rather rough love to her and she loves it. (I thought that was supposed to be offensive to women.) A friend asks her for the details of their sex life and Helgenberger displays, unseen by the viewer, the inside of her thigh and says, "Does this give you any indication?" I'm still wondering about that. I can't quite remember the character's name. Mellors? No, not that. This particular gardener, I mean unlicensed architect, is an untidy person with rough hands and an artistic soul, but he makes the mistake of wanting Helgenberger to love him as much as he loves her, whereas she's perfectly satisfied with nothing more than a physical relationship. As it is, he turns out to be an unreliable lover. He rapes her best friend, finishes redoing her apartment, and disappears. So far so good. But then the narrative gets kind of twisted. Joe Pantoliano has been hanging around in the background, mooning over his now defunct relationship with Helgenberger. He's quite good, as always, but his part is minuscule. The raped best friend disappears. The unlicensed architect disappears. Pantoliano disappears. But SOMEBODY is hanging around, because weird things start going on in Helgenberger's apartment -- all the appliances start running at once, the oven uncalibrates itself and turns the casserole to a cinder, doors and floorboards creak, a bloody hand grabs at her while she is taking a shower, things like that. (We never learn who the bloody hand belonged to but it doesn't matter. It's one of several cheap shocks used in the film. A hand reaching in from out of frame and grabbing her shoulder and it's only a friend who the writers and director neglected to inform us was present.) The shower scene is clearly indebted to "Psycho," down to the trembling violins on the score, but without Hermann's innovative shrieks. The movie isn't really worth any more analysis or comment. You've seen it before in one or another isotopic form. If there's nothing else on TV and you've caught up on all your reading or homework, this will pass the time.