Eyes Behind the Wall (1977) User Reviews

Obscure and quite remarkable

[rundbauchdodo · 7/10 · 14 February 2002]

This odd and obscure Italian mix of giallo and drama tells the strange story of an old paralyzed writer (Fernando Rey), his younger wife (Olga Bisera) and a young man (John Phillip Law, "Delirio di Sangue") who lives in an apartment the couple rent him. What the young man doesn't know: the writer watches him on a telescope whose lens has been installed in the wall of the apartment. The paralyzed man, who shares a subvert secret with his wife, "needs" to spy on the tenants to find inspiration for his writing work. With this new tenant, however, the writer becomes obsessive and urges his wife to follow him to find out more about his personality. The wife becomes fascinated by the mysterious man too, and - needless to say - this "triangular relationship" won't come to a happy end.

"L'Occhio Dietro la Parete" is a really strange picture. All characters in it obviously have a psychological problem concerning relationships towards the other sex. Everyone has weird or even wicked desires and hides a depraved secret: The young man has an urge to kill, the couple's butler preys on teenage girls, and the couple... well, I won't give that away. The film is very atmospheric, shows quite an amount of nudity without becoming too sexploitative, and boosts a moody soundtrack. Sadly, this obscure oddity remains extremely hard to find. But if one can get hold of it, he shouldn't waste the opportunity and watch it: It's a really remarkable and quite unique film. Rating: 7 out of 10.

Eyes Behind the balls

[Bezenby · 6/10 · 18 July 2014]

John Phillip Law (Night train to terror, Death Rides a horse) is a strange man. When we first see him he's on a train apparently murdering and raping some girl, and now he's moved into a house owned by Fernando Rey (High Crime, Price of Power). What Law doesn't know is that the wheelchair bound Rey has rigged his house with some weird sci-fi periscope gadget, allowing him to spy on Law in order to get ideas for his books or something to do with psychology. Far fetched? You betcha. An Italian film? Oooooh, yeah.

Rey's also got a hot wife and a butler who really likes Rey's hot wife, to the point where he's got a life size photo of her in his cupboard which he either punches in the crotch or rubs his face on, and collects her pubes after she has a bath to either smell or pretend he's got a moustache. She hates him though, so he turns his attention to some local girl and puts on a pretend rape show for Rey's wife's benefit. Rey's wife by this point has got the hots for Law after watching him exercising naked (and it's scrotum bouncingly funny).

Meanwhile, just in case anyone doesn't think this film is sleazy enough, Law picks up some joint smoking black dude at a disco (where some chick dances in the buff) and gets botted in the bott by the botter while screaming at the top his voice while Rey and his wife watch on. I actually burst out laughing at that which I'm not sure was the director's intention. It was just the screaming and the look on Law's face.

Rey's wife is all "You didn't tell me he liked his tea towel holder being stabbed by a chocolate javelin" but Rey convinces her to put the moves on Law. For some reason. So she toddles over to Law's house with a lease to sign and the next thing you they're walking around, going out for food and walking around some more while Law spouts philosophical crap about life. Usually buying a couple of bicardi breezers works for me, but before you know it Rey's wife back at Law's house, listening to Tangerine Dream records and getting all naked, while Fernando Rey watches on, having a flashback I won't reveal here. Rey's wife is shouting "Not there! No!" at this point which makes me think that Law was trying on a bit of back door action. Who knows with this film.

While the overall tone of this film is sleazy as hell (even more so with the twists that come later in the film), it's not overall graphic, thankfully, unless you want to see John Phillip Law's knackers, which I'm certain you do. Other than that it's all about the twists, and how everyone in this film is fecked up. It's a not bad thriller but from this genre you'd expect a bit more. Worth a watch though.

Weird, perverse, sexy and funny.

[BA_Harrison · 7/10 · 17 October 2014]

Wheelchair-bound writer Ivano (Fernando Rey) and his sexy partner Olga (Olga Bisera) rent out an apartment to a mysterious young man, Arturo (John Phillip Law), unaware that he is a self-destructive weirdo with sexually violent tendencies. Fascinated by his new tenant, who he believes might be able to inspire his creativity, Ivano begins spying on him via a high-tech piece of surveillance equipment with a periscope and lots of knobs and dials on it. In an effort to learn more about his subject, the voyeuristic cripple convinces Olga to get closer to Arturo, a move that has tragic consequences.

Despite a suitably provocative title and a typically disturbing opening scene involving the rape and murder of a woman on a train, Eyes Behind The Wall is far from standard giallo fare, eschewing the classic ingredients of stylised violence and convoluted mystery in favour of the perverse and truly bizarre. There's not one character in the whole film who isn't warped in some way, making this a whole lot of demented fun even though the plot as a whole is lacking in substance.

Arturo likes to let his balls hang free by exercising in the nude, and despite being a killer rapist with a keen eye for an attractive lady, allows himself to be savagely buggered by a big black disco dancer; Ivano and Olga share a secret far more shocking than their love of voyeurism; and butler Ottavio (José Quaglio) keeps a life-size print of Olga in his wardrobe (which he has dressed in her underwear), spies on her in the bath, sniffs her pubic hair, but takes out his frustration on local teenage girl Lucilia. As Olga gets to know Arturo better, she develops feeling for him, resulting in three bouts of frantic lovemaking in one night, while Ivano watches through his periscope.

The film ends in a fittingly weird and rather abrupt fashion, Arturo committing suicide by setting fire to the car he is in, with Olga also going up in flames as she tries to stop him.

I rate Eyes Behind The Wall 6/10 for being so bloody strange from start to finish, and add a bonus point for the hilarious scene in which the big black disco dude struts his stuff with a tarty blonde in hot-pants, who proceeds to get completely starkers in front of an appreciative crowd.

Sexually perverse, but not necessarily sexy, Italian giallo

[lazarillo · 14 July 2006]

Although sex was an important element in Italian gialli, its importance is sometimes overstated. In the 1970's, not only gialli but even the staid Hammer films in England were injecting gratuitous full-frontal nudity into their movies in order to compete with the hardcore porno that had taken over low-budget cinema in much of continental Europe. In addition, since collectors and DVD buyers today always demand "uncut" versions of these films, the prints sometimes contain near-hardcore footage that was not in the original film but was only put in as "inserts" to sell them in more liberal territories (i.e. the scenes of an obvious body double for Rosalba Neri pleasuring herself in "Slaughter Hotel"). This movie, made late in the gialli cycle, is somewhat unusual therefore in that the sex is not just commercial and gratuitous, but is an essential part of the plot.

The movie starts with a scene (missing from some prints) of a young man (John Phillip-Law)raping and murdering a woman on a train. Later he rents a room from an elderly wheelchair-bound voyeur (Fernando Rey) and his much younger "wife" (Olga Bisneros). The elderly man enjoys watching the younger man through the a hole in the wall where he has set up a periscope-like device. There is something decidedly homoerotic about this. The first thing he sees, for instance, is the younger man get forcibly raped by a big black guy he has picked up at a cheesy disco (where a German-looking extra takes all her clothes off to a wretched disco beat). Then he sends his "wife" over to seduce the young man, and its eventually revealed the true nature of the couple's relationship and how he came to be in the wheelchair. And if the main plot isn't sleazy enough there's also a subplot involving the chauffeur who, when he isn't collecting the wife's pubic hair from the drain in her bathtub, is talking a naive teenage girl (Monica "Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals" Zanchi) into giving him oral favors.

Obviously, this movie is quite a collection of psychopathia sexualis (people like Freud and Reich would have loved it). Which is not to say it is necessarily very sexy (unless impotence, voyeurism, rape, gay interracial rape, pubic-hair fetishes, wife-swapping, child abuse, incest, and bad disco music really turn you on). But there is something fascinating about the sheer wretched excess of perversity on display here. The only thing I could compare it to is the (obviously much better) David Cronenberg movie "Crash" which also takes sexuality beyond titillation into a pathologically perverse and almost alien realm.

Interesting, but not overly effective

[The_Void · 6/10 · 2 October 2006]

It's often said that Italian cinema is based on repeating itself, and this is never truer than when it comes to the Giallo sub-genre; but every now and again, you'll come across a completely absurd effort that isn't like any other Giallo, and Eyes Behind the Wall is one of those films. However, despite its originality, it has to be said that the film really isn't all that good. Despite the themes of voyeurism (obviously inspired by Hitchcock's Rear Window), Eyes Behind the Wall is a rather tame film. Ideas of the spied-upon neighbour's more sordid antics aren't really explored, and even the final sickening twist doesn't feel too bad because of the matter-of-fact way that it is presented. The plot revolves around a wheelchair bound aging writer who has set up some equipment in his house so that he can spy on his next door neighbour, who apparently fascinates him and inspires him for his work as a writer. He soon gets his wife Olga involved in the voyeurism, and even convinces her to get involved with the neighbour in order to give her husband more information on the man he's spying on...

I'm not sure if the version I saw was cut or not (77 minutes long); but considering that this film is about sex, there's very little of it present. There's also not a lot of violence or murder, with most of those themes seeping in almost as an afterthought, probably to ensure that the film was considered a Giallo. It's actually more of a psychological thriller, with all the characters having some sort of vice that makes them sick enough to even be in this story. Aside from the central theme and the final twist, there's also a subplot involving a butler who obsesses over the lady of the house, which he does by taking her underwear and pubic hairs to worship them! The acting is actually quite good, and even though nobody stands out too much; it seems obvious that director Giuliano Petrelli wanted his trash film to have a little more class than most of its counterparts. Overall, I really wanted to like this more, as aside from being one of the more original entries in the genre, I can also admire the film for it's trashy themes. However, the execution is poor and the lack of blood and nudity is none too pleasing, meaning the resulting film feels a little flat.

I spy with my little eye a bunch of perverts!

[Coventry · 4/10 · 6 December 2007]

Fellow Giallo-fanatics: beware and/or proceed with caution … for this movie isn't exactly what it appears to be. It surely looks like a Giallo, with its juicy VHS cover (showing a busty naked girl and a big bloodied knife), rhythmic title and the names of two veteran Italian actors in the cast (John Phillip & Fernando Rey), but it's basically just an erotic thriller without much of a plot. The version I watched is presumably harshly censored – with a running time of barely 77 minutes – but then still there's a severe lack of suspense, character development and most of all sadistic (and typically Giallo) carnage. "Eyes Behind the Wall" can briefly be summarized as the gathering of a bunch of perverted characters and the extended depiction of their sexuality issues. It's an interesting effort notwithstanding, because writer/director Giuliano Petrelli (his only film) clearly attempted to do something special, but the overall result is unsatisfying and regrettably tame. Inspired by Hitchcock's "Rear Window", the main character is a frustrated elderly and wheelchair-bound writer. He and his much younger lover get their sexual kicks from spying on the single male tenant living across the road. The tenant, respectively, likes to perform gym exercises around the house whilst being naked and clearly has bisexual desires. Wheelchair guy sends his wife over and they have sex. Then, there's also Ottavio the butler who repeatedly rapes schoolgirls. Are there any normal characters in the story? Well no, of course not! The film benefices from a continuously ominous atmosphere, with a moody soundtrack and nifty photography, but none of it ever leads anywhere so it's all just sleaze & sex without significance. There's a truly bizarre twist/revelation at the end of the story, but it comes too late and too randomly to boost up the overall quality. Not recommended to fans of Italian horror/cult cinema, but maybe it is great viewing for psychology students, to analyze the characters Freud-style.

Scumtastic!!!

[BandSAboutMovies · 7/10 · 11 January 2021]

Eyes Behind the Wall tells the story of Ivano (Fernado Rey, The French Connection), a wheelchair-bound man who has an apartment filled with audio-visual equipment that allows him to spy on Arturo (John Phillip Law, Danger: Diabolik) and his various sexual conquests. He also gets off making his wife Olga (Olga Bisera, The Spy Who Loved Me and obviously a confidant woman, as she was the partner of Luciano Martino - who had been married to Edwige Fenech and Wandisa Guida - from 2004 until his death in 2013) watch these shenanigans. But now, he wants her to seduce him and be part of the action. And that's where things get...giallo.

There's also an astounding disco sequence with Bava-esque lighting, public nudity and a song called "Disco Boogie" that made me lose my mind. There's nothing quite like a disco scene butting its way in to a movie that has nothing to do with dancing and these scenes are always quite welcome. I mean, everyone in this scene is going for it in a way that I never could on the dance floor.

Giuliano Petrelli was usually an actor - he's in Massacre in Rome and The Italian Connection - and this was his one and done as a writer and director. It's a shame, because this definitely has some great moments and was way better than I thought that it was going to be. It's an adjacent giallo, I guess, as it's more Rear Window than The Bird With the Crystal Plumage. And I did not expect that post-disco scene coming where Arturo's black friend (Jho Jhenkins, The Perfume of the Lady In Black) takes him frm behind on the floor while Ivano gleefully watches and Olivia runs screaming to her bedroom.

Seeing as how the movie starts with Arturo assaulting and murdering a young girl on a train, these things certainly can't end well for anyone. And what's with the butler, who seemingly worships Olga, picking up her body hair and underwear in an almost state of religious ecstasy?

This is an adjacent giallo that could fit into the sex thrillers of the late 80's and 90's, except that it doesn't have any negative attitude toward sexual behaviors, from normal to, well by the end of the movie you learn more, totally aberrant. Nor does it shy away from male nudity, so it's totally the least closed minded pervy 1977 Italian movie you're ever going to see. And hey - that Pippo Caruso (Primitive Love, Escape from Women's Prison) soundtrack is all over the place, from that aforementioned disco number to the strange ambient music that Arturo listens to and the score that drives this film.

The end of this movie will either make total sense to you, gross you out or all of the above. Here's to 70's movies that end on the flaming wreckage of their main characters.

Very bizarre and surprisingly sleazy thriller.

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 8/10 · 19 February 2006]

Fernando Rey stars as Ivano,a wheelchair bound man with some strange perversions.He gets his sexual kicks by spying on Arturo,their tenant in the apartment next-door and forcing his sexy accomplice Olga to watch as well.To increase his perverse thrill,Ivano persuades Olga to seduce Arturo and to have sex him as he watches.Unfortunately for all involved,the sex game starts to get very deadly as it is learned that Arturo is a psychotic serial killer."The Eye Behind the Wall" is a bizarre and very sleazy sexual thriller.Sadly writer/director Giuliano Petrelli never made another film after this.It actually reminded me Alfred Hitchock's masterpiece "Rear Window".The film is atmospheric and features a good amount of nudity and sleaze.Check it out.8 out of 10.

Great stuff.

[christopher-underwood · 8/10 · 31 January 2015]

Well, this is something else! I had a copy of this Fernando Rey film that sounded worth a watch but it was such a terrible print, I kept putting it off. Now I have a sparklingly bright and colourful copy and many would wish that they were watching my old murky copy for this is not a pretty sight. Rape and murder to set things off, male gay rape follows and we are also treated to incest and a butler who seems to have a unhealthy interest in what looks to be a very young girl. All this while Rey, who is wheelchair bound, spies on his neighbour with some very sophisticated equipment and even encourages his 'wife' to go round so he watch them. Yes, its all happening here and I haven't even mentioned the very effective disco scene where we get the most exhilarating performance from one lady dancer who feels so much better with nothing on. This is part thriller, even a little giallo like with the music but is essentially a marital drama gone wrong. Nothing turns out as expected and yes things are even worse than imagined. Some have referenced Rear Window but I was more reminded of Michael Reeves' The Sorcerers with Boris Karloff and his wife getting far too interested in their neighbour. Great stuff.

Rear Window is a reference, but that's about as esteemed as this salacious "thriller" is concerned.

[nosferatusblood1922 · 16 August 2007]

Made in the late 70's, midst an uninhibited generation, we get this piece of ass; err.. sleaze, replete with a disco-faux-horror soundtrack. Throw in a dash of kitsch atmospherics on a budget, a psychological framework Freud might be proud of, plenty of ogling, an incestuous plot twist, and you've got the core details that form this piece of visual excrement marauding under the Giallo banner. Actually, it's not completely terrible.

Fernando Rey plays the role of a crippled writer living with his mistress Olga (Played by Olga Bisera--Who you may know from "Women in Cell Block 7".) Together, they spy on Arturo (John Phillip Law), who rented the apartment on their estate. Using a built in spy contraption, somewhat like a telescope, Ivano persuades Olga not only to look at the man next door but to become interested in him sexually and psychologically. After all, Ivano needs inspiration for his penning and he can no longer please his lady...

Enter Ottavio. The butler of the household who maintains a fetish for Olga, young girls, and most of all: Pubic hair!

So Olga falls for the murderous--First scene calling--Pseudo intellectual man of mystery Arturo. You know, despite seeing him manhandled by another male who followed him home from a disco, heh. Romance blossoms as Ivano becomes jealous, much like in the past, as the twisting plot line reveals in the end, as relates to his paralysis and one man's familial desires. But who needs all that when the creepy butler is prowling around forcing himself onto young lasses? Needless to say, I found him to be the most disturbing/interesting character. In my universe, that counts.

Anyways, this is Petrelli's first and last film, for which i'm thankful. Thankfully he didn't feel the need to direct again after giving his audience an interesting yet failed attempt at a somewhat unique angle on the genre. An oddity it is & one not fully realized...

Hooray for sexually dysfunctional orientation and voyeuristic perversion !