Eyes of Fire (1983)
October 14, 2022
Synopsis
We first meet Will Smythe narrowly escaping a hanging. Why? Because he’s shacked up with two women- one of whom is still married- despite being a supposedly devout Christian preacher. His life is saved by his wife, Leah, who appears to be equal parts mad and magical. The story is told by the two children of his other partner, Eloise, who’s left her husband Marion due to his disappearing for months on end while he’s trapping. A few other people leave the village with them, including one played by Rob Paulsen, AKA Yakko-freaking-Warner (and Pinky!).
They find their way to a mysterious valley with the remnants of an abandoned settlement and decide to make it their new home. It doesn’t go well.
Effects
Fun as hell. Sometimes bad, sometimes great, usually cheesy. Odd choices are made but are frequently delightful. I especially liked scenes where it’s implied the witch is near, because I loved the screen effect. I haven’t been able to find out what this effect is called so if you know please drop me a line. I saw one person call it Chroma-Key which may be true but I haven’t found any other source on it. I loved the shot of Marion covered in leaves and writhing on the ground, I loved the witch, I loved the tree-faces, and the SMALL CHILD EXPLODING???
The characters and story
Characters: Smythe is the perfect zealot blinded by hubris (though he is...unsettlingly smooth).
Marion isn’t your typical strong and silent macho man, and is trying to get his family to leave for basically the entire movie, even making an actual escape attempt with his daughters. It's a little unusual that he’s so obviously freaked out and trying to warn everyone the whole time; that role usually falls on an ignored and long-suffering wife or girlfriend character, right?
Another interesting thing about Marion is how calm he is about the fact that his wife left him for this delusional preacher. She just declares in his absence that they’re not married anymore and he's like "...alright, but I'm gonna stick around and look after my kids,” and he never does give up on saving his wife and daughters. When he and Eloise reunite at the end of the movie, it actually feels pretty natural since he hasn’t been pushing her and whining the whole time.
I liked Eloise's arc; she doesn't get the screentime she deserves but for a woman who's sort of a background piece the fact that she even has an arc, and a good one at that, is pretty cool. Even if it does revolve completely around men- beginning and ending with her falling in and out and love- I never saw her as a trite pawn for the story. Her story could have carried more emotional weight with just an extra scene or two. Specifically, a scene between her and Marion where he properly apologized for repeatedly abandoning her and their children could have made their reunion really impactful. I do think the writer did his best though, considering where emotional intelligence and gender relations were in the 1700s (and 1980s!).
Of course it’s racist
Come on, it’s a movie from the 80s about settler colonialism. You know it’s gonna be racist!
Let me state this up front: I’m not Shawnee or any kind of Native American. I’m just a dipshit amateur internet researcher and movie enjoyer, so I may be completely wrong about everything I’m about to say. That said, I did put genuine effort into looking this stuff up and the legend that forms the backbone of the plot seems to have been completely fabricated at best, and a fucking remix of some shit from the Bible at worst.
It’s a bummer because the myth is pretty cool and could have easily been altered to not be gross, though any story involving Native Americans and settlers is going to be dicey from the jump. After Marion saves the group from another Shawnee attack, Leah finds a mysterious forest clearing where the trees are covered in white feathers. Marion explains that the feathers are a warning for the various local tribes: an entrance to a cursed valley is nearby, wherein innocent blood collects when spilled. When that innocent blood reaches a critical mass, an evil witch takes form.
Personally, I think that’s a pretty rad myth (isolated from context). What’s not rad is that this dark, evil, “Native” witch ends up being defeated by the good “white magic” of the Fae-like Leah. Given that it's set in 1750 during full-on colonial mode it's not a huge leap to infer that the innocent blood being gathered there is from the Natives, which of course means the Witch is Native too. And she's defeated by a beautiful white woman with "good" magic. Not great.
Closing thoughts
The director chose to use flashback and narration as the storytelling device, which unfortunately robs the movie of some tension. Narration by children is a very specific pet peeve of mine, and it’s done especially poorly here. It frequently switches between three children, two of whom are just too young to perform well. Leah is also handled rather clumsily. She’s kind of just a background figure with magical powers, having premonitions that, once again, rob the movie of tension. The orphan girl is also handled weirdly: Smythe immediately declares that he’s going to baptize her but seemingly never does, and she becomes just another background figure, milling around the settlement being suspicious.
Full disclosure: Folk horror is my favorite subgenre so I know I'm biased, but even with all its problems I can’t help but love this movie. There’s just too much delight to be had. The mud-familiars attacking their houses with goddamn BONES? Stealing Smythe’s library only to cover his home in the ripped-up pages? Wonderful. The trapped spirit mud people all suckling from the cow was fantastic. Fanny and Maggie’s spirits being caught in the tree was straight from faerie lore, though with an interesting twist; typically if someone’s spirit is caught in something, chopping it down would kill that person rather than free them, but whatever.
Robert Eggers has definitely seen this movie: there's so much of it in The VVitch. A zealot is chased out of normal society for his weird beliefs and drags his family into the wilderness, eventually settling in a cursed meadow where they're terrorized by a forest witch, with one of the women becoming one. Eggers' version is a lot better in my opinion, and has a lot more going on, but Eyes of Fire is undeniably much more fun. I think about an hour into this movie I realized I'd just been smiling watching it. The story beats swing wildly between deadly serious and extremely silly, and once the curse picks up steam it kinda becomes just one ridiculous event after the other, in a great way.
I mean, a small child runs away and explodes and there’s a BONE ATTACK! How can I not love it?
Content warnings
Animal death (livestock), settler and colonial shit.