From Ken Wiederhorn, director of the underrated underwater Nazi zombie classic "Shock Waves," comes this variation on the classic "Babysitter and the Man Upstairs" urban legend/scary story (i.e. "The call is coming from inside the house!"). Lauren Tewes, Julie McCoy of "The Love Boat" fame, plays a TV news reporter covering a story about a serial murderer/rapist prowling 1980s Miami for victims. The urban legend element is that the killer calls his victims over the phone before he strikes. Tewes begins to suspect her creepy neighbor and we begin to move into a competently made slasher film version of "Rear Window." The film was written by Ron Kurz (as Mark Jackson), who wrote "Friday the 13th Part 2" which gave the world the adult version of Jason Voorhees, but this film's killer is no Jason and the thrills are far from generating Hitchockian levels of suspense. In the film's favor, Jennifer Jason Leigh is very good in an early role as Tewes' younger sister who she's trying to protect and composer Richard Einhorn provides a good score, but a major standout (if it's your sort of thing) are the gory old school practical special effects by genre maestro Tom Savini ("Dawn of the Dead" "Manic" "The Prowler" "Creepshow" etc.). Overall, "Eyes of a Stranger" feels like a competent enough of made-for-TV movie (although it was a theatrical release) with a few decent set pieces that included a fair amount of slasher film levels of gore, which was enough to hold my interest, but not enough to make this a film one to go out of your way to watch unless 80s slasher films are your thing (which they are mine).
