Eye of the Beholder (1999)

Release date: 2000-06-09
Country: Canada|UK|Australia
Language: English
Director: Stephan Elliott
Production Co: Ambridge Film Partnership, Behaviour Worldwide, Eye of the Beholder Ltd.
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Rating: 5.1/10
Length: 1h 49min

Storyline

British Consulate investigator Det. Stephen Wilson, a.k.a. the Eye, comes across a disturbed lady serial-killer while on an otherwise mundane assignment. Already a bit psychologically fragile from his wife's abrupt removal of herself and their daughter from his life (with the lingering memory of his daughter haunting him like a manifest ghost), his psychosis as a displaced dad dovetails with the femme fatale's psychosis as an abandoned daughter (crying "Merry Christmas, Daddy" over her expired victims). A bond forms, or, rather, an obsession, as the Eye abandons his job to secretively stalk this mysterious woman full-time as she visits many major U.S. cities under various names, leaving numerous victims.

Plot Keywords

femme fatale, new york city, false identity, cigarette smoking, chicago illinois, female serial killer, love, drugs, beating, shootout, death, police officer killed, violence, car crash, insanity, cat, beggar, blood, snowglobe, rain

Short Review

As misogynistic as anything I've seen in ages, it's tricked up with enough fancy cinematography (by Guy Dufaux) to guarantee it sub-Hitchcockian credentials of the sort that some reviewers eagerly hand out to Brian De Palma.