Eyes Behind the Stars
There is no escape from this world ... no one can be trusted.
Year of Release: 1978
Also Known As: Occhi dalle stelle
Genre: Science Fiction/Thriller
Rated: Not Rated
Running Time: 92 minutes (1:32)
Director: Mario Gariazzo
Cast:
Robert Hoffmann ... Tony Harris
Victor Valente ... Coleman Perry
Nathalie Delon ... Monica Stiles
Martin Balsam ... Inspector Jim Grant
Sherry Buchanan ... Karin Hale
Franco Garofalo ... Peter Collins
Sergio Rossi ... Leader of 'The Silencers'
Summary:
A photographer and his model go to an isolated spot in the woods to take pictures when they suddenly feel that they are being watched. The feeling is so intense that they hastily leave the area, though they have seen no one. When the photographer develops his film, he discovers that his camera has recorded the presence of space aliens.
A journalist gets wind of the story and seeks to inform the public about invisible space visitors who could easily subvert the governments of Earth. But he finds that his greatest peril comes from the governments themselves, as the intelligence departments of several European and American nations will stop at nothing to silence him.
Review:
The Eyes Behind the Stars... pretty misleadin' title if you ask me. Makes it sound like an Access Hollywood documentary on the paparazzi, or maybe a Lifetime original about actresses imperiled by stalkers, ya know, Eyes Behind the Stars: The John Hinckley Jr. Story, featuring a dramatic openin' narration by Jodi Foster.
An speakin' of women who play hard to get, normally I'm not the typa guy who gets P.O.'d about losin' at things, but when you lose 182 games of Monopoly in a row it starts gettin' to ya. Specially since I almost never lost before Sadie Bonebreak started playin' with us. Allow me to set the scene for ya: the year was 1998, Slick Willy Clinton was skankin' it up in the White House, technologically stunted weirdos were storin' up food for the big Y2K problem that was about to return us to the stone age, an the last game of Monopoly that didn't include Sadie had just been completed. My personal records indicate Billy Hilliard won that game with a lethal combination of yellow an blue property sets commonly referred to as "the Ziploc strategy" (the yellow and blue make game sealed), after which his race car took its traditional victory lap an made a big show outta runnin' over my Scotty dog just to be an asshole... I don't forget these things. Anyway, that's not the point. The point is: *every* game proceedin' that one, which, coincidentally, has been every game ever played since Sadie joined our band of societal outcasts, has ended in victory for her an that cursed wheelbarrow. Well, after our latest defeat last month, Cleave Furguson, Billy an I've been plottin' an schemin' about how to end Sadie's reign of terror, an we finally come to the conclusion that we hadda put our own rivalries aside an just cheat. We agreed beforehand not to buy any properties that'd keep anyone *but* Sadie from gettin' a monopoly, an by God that was gonna fix 'er wagon. On a side note, it's great bein' the official Grime Time projectionist, cause with great power comes a full set of keys, an I figured it'd be pretty awesome to play our game up on the deck of the projection booth with a drive-in classic playin' up on the screen for background atmosphere. In our little circle it's tradition to have a flick playin' durin' the game, an where better to have a Monopoly party than the drive-in, where the flicks're HUGE.
Naturally, that also meant havin' access to the concession stand, so Sadie, Billy, an Cleave all did rock paper scissors to determine who hadda fry up the corn dogs (Billy lost cause he seems to always throw rock an then immediately forget about it), while I set up Eyes Behind the Stars an Cleave set up the game board (I think Sadie was on 'er phone fightin' with her worse half about when she'd be home). Course, once the flick started playin' Skunky Hernandez saw it an drove over on his tractor rantin' at us in Spanish. Didn't really understand what he was sayin', but I did catch the phrase "degenerido intrusas!", which didn't sound very polite. Apparently he was P.O.'d about the prospect of people camping in the hills bein' able to watch our public domain movie for free despite bein' way too far away to hear it. That's just the kinda guy Skunky is. He finally drove off cussin' when Sadie started comin' down the stairs at 'im an we went ahead an started the game. Then we restarted the game after the wind from the speakers blew the money all over the place an I hadda turn the sound down to about half capacity so we wouldn't keep recreatin' that Maxell ad with the guy in the armchair. I think it was the whole big screen cinema idea that ultimately caused our downfall, cause Billy an Cleave were perpetually glued to the screen tryin' to keep all the dumbass characters straight, an of course I'm not payin' attention to the game like I oughta be cause I'm constantly takin' notes for the review, an so 45 minute pass an I notice our pact's gone completely to Hell cause nobody's got their head in the game. Sadie's got three railroads an a few houses on the green properties, an everybody else is pretty well screwed. Cleave had the light blue ones, but they were all mortgaged, Billy was tryin' to trade Baltic, Mediterranean an $700 for Tennessee to complete his orange set, but Sadie wouldn't do it, an as for me, well, I was in jail short on bail money wonderin' how in the HELL everything went down the tubes so fast. Then I notice how much cash Sadie still has on toppa all 'er property an think to myself "a-ha!" - she's been embezzlin' from the bank this whole time, but no, that didn't wash, cause Cleave's been our designated banker since the beginnin' of time. Sadie'd never even asked to be the banker, so how in the heck does this keep happenin'?
Well it didn't take too much longer to finally figure it out, cause up to that point Park Place'd still been up for sale, an Sadie already had Boardwalk, so I stopped payin' so much attention to the movie an started keepin' a closer eye on 'er, an eventually when I pretended to turn my attention back to the flick it happened: quick as a Vegas blackjack dealer she snatched the deed outta the "for sale" pile an stuck it in her own stack. It was diabolical, an not just the part where she'd been usin' our own pitiful attention spans against us for years, but the volunteerin' for the seemingly pointless property master duties, cause the cheater in any given group of players *always* goes for the banker job. After that she'd wait 3, maybe 4 turns before ever puttin' houses on the properties despite havin' plenty of money (she never paid for the properties she'd lifted, obviously) so there'd be a little buffer between the theft an the real estate construction. That's the beauty of 'er whole system, cause after you've been distracted awhile not only do you have no idea how long a given property's been "sold," but when you do finally notice the person has a set you don't wanna say anything cause you're *hoping* they forget they have it an can build on it. I caught 'er blue-handed though, an I smacked the pause button quick as I could so Billy an Cleave'd spin their heads around fast enough to see it too, an it worked. EVERYBODY saw it, an after about seven awkward seconds of complete silence she finally burst out laughin' 'er ass off at us an kept squealin' "19 years!" between hilarity snorts. "It took you NINETEEN years to catch on!" she'd howl, an I gotta say, that *really* sucked the fun outta finally catchin' 'er, cause findin' out you've been gettin' buffaloed for that long don't exactly make ya feel real smart. At that point we restarted the game an I threw Night Fright up on the screen to keep us occupied between turns (with Billy having taken over prop master duties), an 2 hours later *I* emerged triumphant with the "Ghetto Fabulous" corner combination of purple an blue properties. Course, now I kinda feel like the dog who caught the car, I mean, what the heck's the point of playin' anymore now that the streak is over? Ah well, it's still a pretty good way to spend a Wednesday night I guess.
If you've ever actually seen The Eyes Behind the Stars you may be wonderin' how it's even possible to get distracted by it, let alone maintain focus on it, but I personally enjoyed waitin' to see how long the plot could sustain its break-neck pace before havin' to stop for yet another chapter in the history of Ufology. I mean, I guess if you've got no intellectual curiosity about the rest of the universe, it's prolly more like The Eyes Behind the Lids, but we're gonna give this thing a chance, an part of givin' it a chance means I gotta prove to ya that the events depicted herein have practical applications for our everyday lives, so let's take a quick look at a few of its pearls of wisdom. First, apparently the influence of those American Express ads has reached pretty far out into the cosmos, cause even fleece body-stocking clad aliens don't let people under the effects of their E.T. mind control leave home without it. Second, it's perfectly acceptable to murder people in cold blood if it gets you one step closer to a good news story. An third, gender equality means beatin' the holy hell out of a woman who spies on you at the behest of the U.F.O. Gestapo, even if she's hot.
Now, maybe I'm just missing the deeper meanin' again, but am I the only one who's noticed that the alien procedures manual seems to read like an intergalactic "ridiculous laws of the U.S.A." book you'd find on a magazine spindle at Rocky's Last Chance Gas in Bleachbone, Arizona? Ya know, those little time killers they sell in the truck stops that tell ya how they don't tolerate folks keepin' an ice cream cone in their back pockets on a Sunday in Georgia, an that if you wanna do degenerate crap like that you'd best take it someplace less sophisticated, like South Carolina? Well, here's an example of an equally asinine prime directive loophole: it's okay for aliens to stalk an even murder humans to recover photos of their existence, but resoddin' the charred soil at their landin' sites is an absolute non-starter. Or maybe they're plannin' to send darker-skinned aliens from south of the outer space border to come back an do their dirty work for 'em later, I dunno. I'ma give you another example: they'll straight up kill your ass for lookin' at their ship, but evidently, when they're finished pokin' an proddin' their human specimens they hafta release 'em back to Earth like an overgrown pet alligator, knowin' full well we got psychic detectives capable of accessin' the deepest regions of people's repressed subconscious. Who the heck wrote these rules? Seems to me what they oughta do is elect that orange gear-shifter lookin' alien from Star Crystal as their leader so he can clear out some of their bureaucratic alien red tape an make the Klingons pay for the lawyers' fees. I mean, what the hell do they have to lose?
The movie begins with this photographer (Peter) droppin' off his muse (Karin) in an SUV he bought at the army surplus store, before headin' home an developin' the pictures from their photo shoot an gettin' this real confused look on his face just before a U.F.O. comes careenin' towards the screen, triggerin' a credits avalanche an the realization that this flick pretty much hasta be Italian. Then we go back in time to that mornin' when they were out in the woods with Karin dressed up like she's just left the Renaissance Faire after bein' hassled by a buncha pimple-faced wimps destined to keep their lances in their pantses for the rest of recorded time, where the two of 'em get to work once they find a spot that looks like a nice idyllic setting for a symphonic metal music video. They shoot there awhile until Peter calls break an goes to look for a different spot while Karin changes into an outfit that looks like she's about to go sell palm readins on 5th Avenue, but once Peter finds a good spot they can't help but notice their watches've stopped, the birds've gone on strike, an everything feels like they've walked onto the set of an Outer Limits episode. Afterwards, best as I can tell (despite the complete lack of a transition), the chunk from the beginnin' of the movie belongs right here, an so Peter's now dumped Karin off at home an come back to the woods to fire off more pictures at nothin' in particular, until a point-of-view monster that makes noises like my tape rewinder reelin' up a stretched out EP recordin' of the 1988 Cable Ace Awards starts movin' towards 'im an he hasta beat cheeks over to a nearby farmhouse where the phone's dead an the lights cave to the peer pressure shortly thereafter. Then the asthmatic-Darth-Vader-with-"sounds of the NBA"-Nike-shoe-squeaks noise chimes in again an pretty quick the inside of the house lights up like a buncha middle-schoolers under the bleachers in the football stadium an Peter's camera gets beamed up by Scotty, forcin' 'im to run outside where he ends up inside a space ship run by female Muslim welders who like to play Odyssey games on their viewscreen. Suffice to say, Peter's laid down a pretty sizable down payment on a pair of shitty drawers, an next thing you know the aliens lay 'im out on a marble slab an start flashin' a light in his face until he develops epilepsy and an involuntary comic strip thought bubble pops out an informs the aliens Karin might know about 'em too. Meanwhile, Karin's gone over to Peter's place to make sure all the campfire cleavage shots turned out tasteful, only he ain't there of course, an she ends up findin' the pictures he'd developed earlier of the aliens photo bombin' 'em an a note sayin' he's gone back to the site.
Karin's thoroughly P.O.'d at the prospect of not bein' the most provocative image in the pictures, an so she shows the pics to a reporter friend of hers (Tony) an leaves the negatives with him, only to return home to find 'er livin' room lights gradually dimmin' like a college SAT score chart until some phantom Away Team beams up all 'er pictures an mind controls 'er into drivin' back out to the woods. The next day, Tony finds out from his secretary (Monica) that Peter an Karin's cars were found depreciatin' in value in the forest by the police, but when Tony heads out that way the inspector (Grant) won't tell 'im anything or let 'im go look at the three Goliath-sized cigarette burns smolderin' in the ground. Grant does invite Tony along for his warrantless break-in of the nearest residence though (the one Peter ran to), an inside they find the owner clingin' to life with his now-blind German Shepard curled up next 'im. Which is a pretty cruel prank to play, cause now the dog's gonna need a seein' eye cat just to find his dish an probably get ridiculed mercilessly at the dog park. Then Tony goes to his office an recaps the movie for everyone who got diarrhea from the concession stand food an hadda spend the last 20 minutes on the crapper so Monica can type it up for 'im, an when he goes down to the hospital to question the old guy who got microwaved like a frozen burrito the doctor tells 'im the guy's dead an that he can't see the body until it's had a skin graft cause he can't risk people throwin' up all over his hospital. This could mean only one thing: aliens. Or... I guess maybe doctor/patient confidentiality, but PROBABLY aliens. So Tony goes to visit the local U.F.O. expert/antique dealer (Perry) who assures 'im that extraterrestrial visitors are 100% real an that his enthusiasm has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he's currently looking for a buyer upon whom to offload 30,000 grey alien ashtrays, an while that's goin' on the aliens're back over at the site of their previous landin', force chokin' a buncha national guard troops an flashin' the Duck Hunt light zapper in their faces til they crumple up like origami cranes in the clutches of a playground bully. Unfortunately, Perry's house's been bugged by these guys who're dressed up like the Los Angeles district attorney, so it ain't long before they show up at Tony's pad an pound the bejabbers out of 'im, steal the "Alien Probes: How to Regain Your Self-Respect Afterwards" pamphlet Perry gave 'im, stash the evidence in a briefcase, an leave with it handcuffed to this guy who looks like Steve McQueen got froze to death in a meat freezer an then thawed out with a blow dryer. As if that ain't bad enough, the next mornin' Tony, Monica, an Perry all get called into Inspector Grant's office like a groupa kids who've been caught conspirin' to incite a food fight in the cafeteria, an he demands Tony give up the negatives Karin gave 'im cause he's too cheap to just buy the glamour shot calendar.
Then Tony hides behind the first amendment an metaphorically shakes his pasty British hinder in Grant's face an walks outta there so he can go back to Perry's antique shop an loudly discuss the alien/human hybrid superbabies livin' in Brazil, while this lady spy pretends to browse the Victorian pottery section an drop a recordin' of the conversation off with Wrinkly Steve McQueen. I prolly don't hafta tell ya - that don't go over well with the men in slacks, an later that night Tony ends up gettin' abducted by illegal guido aliens who make 'im listen to this big spiel about how they're just tryin' to hide the truth to keep the planet's delicate collective psyche from shatterin' like an only child who just found out their mom's pregnant. Tony ain't really buyin' it, but he's already exceeded the maximum payout on his health insurance policy after the last beatin', so he tells 'em the negatives are at his house. Only when they get there an he's about to fork 'em over, the lights go out like there's about to be a secret run-in at a wrestling event an the aliens end up swoopin' in an swipin' the negatives for their intergalactic Instagram accounts. Then Grant calls Tony to rub it in a little, only a few minutes into the nyah-nyahin' these two guys walk into Grant's office draggin' Karin around like a coupla frat boys disposin' of a rape victim, an when Grant tries talkin' to 'er he can't help but notice how 'er eyes look like Marilyn Burns' in the dinner table scene from Texas Chainsaw Massacre an that 'er brain's got one of those "back in five minutes" signs taped to it. Naturally, Tony hears the whole exchange cause nobody at the police academy ever bothered to tell Grant that sound doesn't stop travelin' through the phone receiver just cause you lay it down on your desk, so Tony an Perry head for the psychiatric hospital to try questionin' Karin an end up runnin' into Grant who tells 'em Obama's death panel musta kidnapped 'er an taken 'er to a free clinic or somethin'. Then Tony gets this look on his face like he just realized that strippers only like you when you're givin' 'em money an drives over to Monica's place with Perry so he can make like Prodigy an smack his bitch up for spyin' on 'im for the U.F.O. Gestapo an force 'er to take 'em to the vegetable crisper where Karin's comatose keister's bein' stored so they can bust in an start blowin' away goons like Shaft an steal 'er back. It's all pretty easy to believe up to this point, cept then Tony an Perry bring in this psychic so she can do the Vulcan Mind Meld with Karin an tell 'em about how she got a free gynecological exam on the space ship, until the aliens show up outside the hospital to unplug the USB cable connectin' their two brains an... I prolly better just cut it off here before I go spoilin' the endin'. But the flick's in the public domain, so you can check it out at the link below if you wanna find out how much of what I just said was BS an how much is the straight skinny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLWB68yD6B8
Alrighty, well, if you like your alien abduction movies without any aliens in it have I got a treat for you. I guess that's exaggerating a little, but I'd estimate that the total screen time for these aliens is right around four minutes. That probably had something to do with the fits of hysterical laughter the audience broke into when they first laid eyes on the body-stocking clad extraterrestrials who go through life seein' everything through a blue-tinted fish bowl, but there comes a point where you hafta accept your limitations and own 'em. At least, there would be if you weren't making a pro-U.F.O. propaganda flick that jumps back and forth between its plot and the juicer historical events in Ufology over the course of 92 minutes. The flick actually starts with the passage: "A film written and directed by Roy Garret. Member of the National Investigation Committee on Aerial Phenomenon research organization (N.I.C.A.P.) and field investigator of the Aerial Phenomenon Research Organization (A.P.R.O.) of the U.S.A." But of course, because this is an Italian movie, the cast and crew are all using American pseudonyms to try passin' it off as an American picture, so you'll probably shocked to learn that Roy Garret doesn't actually exist. It's possible the director (Mario Gariazzo) *was* a member of these organizations, but it seems pretty unlikely, as A.P.R.O. had pretty well disbanded and reformed as M.U.F.O.N. by the time this flick was made. He does seem to have taken at least some time to dig up information on the better known U.F.O. incidents of the time (which the characters in the movie stop to discuss every time the plot is on the verge of building a little momentum), but I'd imagine that his alleged involvement with Ufology was likely just a gimmick. The movie then closes with the text: "Portions of the events depicted in this film actually occurred, although at different times and in other places. All data and civil and military authorities, past and present, quoted are factual", which further perpetuates said gimmick. Of course, one might rightly question the sincerity of ole "Roy" after learning that he also directed a film called "Very Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind" that same year, the plot of which centers around three dorks who dress up like aliens in hopes of scorin' with their Astronomy professor. I guess even an artist hasta prostitute his most strongly held beliefs to pay the rent sometimes. Unfortunately, the gimmick is far more interesting than the movie, which can generally be attributed to the fact that Gariazzo (R.I.P.) was attempting to punch above his weight class, because this could have become an amazing cult film if the god-awful aliens had gotten a little more screen time. Instead, we've essentially got a 3-way game of cat and mouse between Robert Hoffman, the U.F.O. Gestapo, and the point-of-view camera intended to represent the aliens' perspective, and it's pretty dang slow as a result.
Nonetheless, it's my sworn duty to slap this sucker on the ole alien autopsy table and paw through the innards to find out how bad they stink, and that's a job I take *very* seriously, so if somebody'd hold onto this here bowl while I look for interestin' specimens to plop in there I'd be much obliged. The plot is kinda hard to follow, particularly where it involves chronology, because the opening segment involves Peter dropping Karin off after their initial photo shoot, at which point he makes plans to see her later that night. He then develops the film and stares perplexed at the space critters in the background until the credits roll. Next thing we see the two of them are out in the woods on what I'm assuming is the shoot that chronologically took place *before* the opening, after which it suddenly gets dark and Karin is no longer there. I assume that's because the part where she went home is actually the very first thing we see in the movie, but there's literally zero transition between her having been there and then leaving. All they hadda do was just shoot an opening jolt scene where the aliens mutilate a cow or something and there'da been no need for all this confusing editing. You've also got a pretty nasty case of plot contradiction given that Robert Hoffman's secretary is actually the one who informs him about the landing site to begin with, and then turns out to be a mole who's recording his conversations and trying to sabotage him for the Silencers. You could make the argument that the Silencers may have gotten to her *after* he started his investigation, but I'm not inclined to give this screenwriter that much credit. In short - the script's a mess, and you will see the chief of police lay the phone down on his desk with a reporter on the other end and accidentally dictate sensitive information. I guess if that was their idea of a segue, the flick may be better off for having made few attempts at them. The acting is actually not bad, although as you've probably come to expect with Italian pictures, everyone in the cast is dubbed. The dubbing is about as good as can be expected, but the fact remains that anytime a character's lines are recorded separate from filming, they're going to be flatter than they would be had they been recorded live. Still, Robert Hoffman, Nathalie Delon and Martin Balsam all do a decent job with a script that's painfully turgid at times, and even among the supporting cast there isn't any one actor who stands out as abysmally terrible.
Here's who matters and why: Martin Balsom (Psycho, Two Evil Eyes, The Brother from Space, Innocent Prey, Murder in Space, The Sentinel, The Six Million Dollar Man), Sherry Buchanan (Zombie Holocaust, Escape from Galaxy 3, Tentacles, Crawlspace), Sergio Russi (Miami Golem), Mario Novelli (Star Pilot, Beyond the Door III, The Scorpion with Two Tails, Hercules and the Princess of Troy), Franco Garofolo (Hell of the Living Dead, Hercules 1983, The Scorpion with Two Tails, Guardian of Hell, The Return of the Exorcist, Sex of the Witch), Giovanna Di Luia (Deep Red), George Ardisson (The Long Hair of Death, Hercules in the Haunted World, Don't Look in the Attic, Hercules and the Princess of Troy), Franco Beltramme (Something Creeping in the Dark), Tom Felleghy (The Cat O' Nine Tails, Voices from Beyond, The House of Witchcraft, Escape from the Bronx, Nightmare City, Guardian of Hell, Damned in Venice, War of the Planets, The Red Nights of the Gestapo, The Night Child, Deep Red, Eyeball, Seven Dead in the Cat's Eye, Night of the Devils, All the Colors of the Dark, 4... 3... 2... 1... morte, The Wonders of Aladdin, Caltiki the Immortal Monster), Eolo Capritti (Giallo a Venezia, Battle of the Stars, War of the Planets, SS Girls), Giovanni Cianfriglia (Superargo and the Faceless Giants, Superargo contra Diabolikus, The Barbarians, The Final Executioner, Escape from the Bronx, Hercules 1983, 2019: After the Fall of New York, Ironmaster, Thor the Conqueror, The Pumaman, The Sheriff and the Satellite Kid, Hercules the Avenger, Castle of Blood, Hercules and the Black Pirates), Fulvio Mingozzi (Suspiria, Deep Red, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Phenomena, Warriors of the Wasteland, Tenebre, The Scorpion with Two Tails, Inferno, Eyeball, Frankenstein '80, Seven Blood-Stained Orchids, Black Belly of the Tarantula, The Cat 'O Nine Tails, Flashman), Alex Partexano (Revenge of the Dead). We've also got a coupla folks who'd been in some fairly major productions up to this point; namely Nathalie Delon (Jane Legrange in Le Samurai), and the great character actor Martin Balsom, who'd done a lot of significant supporting roles over the years. His list of mainstream credits are as follows: O.J. Berman in Breakfast at Tiffany's, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel in Tora! Tora! Tora!, Mr. Beamish in St. Elmo's Fire, Howard Simons in All the President's Men, Bianchi in Murder on the Orient Express, Harold Langman in The Taking of Pelham One, Col. Cathcart in Catch-22, Paul Girard in Seven Days in May, and of course, he also played Murray Klein on Archie Bunker's Place.
The special effects are... shall we say, "limited." Limited in terms of budget, imagination, ingenuity, and of course, authenticity. The aliens are just guys (or very flat chested women) in body suits with circular chunks of blue glass where their faces would be, and despite being head and shoulders above say, Plan 9 From Outer Space, the U.F.O. models tend to get a little bit wobbly when they leave the ground. They're not terrible to look at, but there's absolutely no mistaking them for anything but miniatures. You've also got a small amount of dried Play-Doh being utilized to represent radiation burns a la Beast of Yucca Flats, but that's about the extent of the film's special effects ambition. Some of the shooting locations aren't bad, like the forest in which the modeling session takes place, but the interior of the U.F.O. is pretty cheesy. Think original Star Trek TV series, but with only 5% of its budget, and you've got the inside of the space ship. There's only one small control panel with about a dozen flashing lights, and a platform in the center of the room, so it's decidedly lame. Beyond that, you've got the newspaper office (not bad), a coupla hospitals (real bad), an antique shop (not much variety, although it did at least look to be a real store), and a few residences that aren't especially memorable, but which serve their purpose. So, pretty mediocre on that front. The soundtrack is really dated, and by really dated I mean it sounds 15 years too old for a movie made in 1978. Most of the music is cliched, and filled with a wide variety of overutilized sound effects that put it much closer to the 1960s Star Trek series than Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which incidentally was released one year *before* Eyes Behind the Stars. Basically, if this soundtrack had been produced for a science fiction film in 1955, it'd be just fine, appropriate even, but we're talkin' one year after Star Wars here, and this score just doesn't cut the muster as far as generating the kind of atmosphere they'd intended. Overall, the movie spends WAY too much time focused on the human cast, and not nearly enough on the aliens. If you wanna see a good alien abduction flick, check out Communion or Fire in the Sky, cause Eyes Behind the Stars has damn near nothing to offer in the way of science fiction.
Rating: 31%