Through the Eyes of a Killer (1992 TV Movie) User Reviews

The Secret Sharer

[rmax304823 · 5/10 · 26 July 2003]

This is about average for TV fare and belongs on Lifetime Movies for Women. The performances are the best part of the work, probably. Marg Helgenberger is a delight to look at with her wide blue eyes and model's bone structure and her cute belly and saucy rump. Her talent as an actress is modest but that's good enough.

The guy who plays Roy more successfully inhabits his character though. Unlike Helgenberger he seems not to be playing himself but rather a role. The role itself isn't too original: fantasy number three, sub a, in which a classy woman acquires a gardener or, in this case, an unlicensed architect, who unexpectedly makes rather rough love to her and she loves it. (I thought that was supposed to be offensive to women.) A friend asks her for the details of their sex life and Helgenberger displays, unseen by the viewer, the inside of her thigh and says, "Does this give you any indication?" I'm still wondering about that. I can't quite remember the character's name. Mellors? No, not that.

This particular gardener, I mean unlicensed architect, is an untidy person with rough hands and an artistic soul, but he makes the mistake of wanting Helgenberger to love him as much as he loves her, whereas she's perfectly satisfied with nothing more than a physical relationship. As it is, he turns out to be an unreliable lover. He rapes her best friend, finishes redoing her apartment, and disappears.

So far so good. But then the narrative gets kind of twisted. Joe Pantoliano has been hanging around in the background, mooning over his now defunct relationship with Helgenberger. He's quite good, as always, but his part is minuscule. The raped best friend disappears. The unlicensed architect disappears. Pantoliano disappears. But SOMEBODY is hanging around, because weird things start going on in Helgenberger's apartment -- all the appliances start running at once, the oven uncalibrates itself and turns the casserole to a cinder, doors and floorboards creak, a bloody hand grabs at her while she is taking a shower, things like that. (We never learn who the bloody hand belonged to but it doesn't matter. It's one of several cheap shocks used in the film. A hand reaching in from out of frame and grabbing her shoulder and it's only a friend who the writers and director neglected to inform us was present.) The shower scene is clearly indebted to "Psycho," down to the trembling violins on the score, but without Hermann's innovative shrieks.

The movie isn't really worth any more analysis or comment. You've seen it before in one or another isotopic form. If there's nothing else on TV and you've caught up on all your reading or homework, this will pass the time.

Symbolic and not realistic

[nightroses · 5/10 · 5 August 2020]

There are things that don't make rational sense. Many questions have been raised. The list goes on. Laurie is a wealthy woman recently split up from her boyfriend and looks for her own place. She's taken to a very grand looking historic apartment complex but on the inside, it's completely horrible. Boarded up windows, graffiti, rats, no running clean water, a nasty looking dump. It hasn't been lived in for many years and looks scary. For some unknown reason, Laurie decides to accept it! No logic there. And she employs Ray, a builder who she's chance met at her office, to do the place up, using her dad's money. Most people wonder how he lived inside the walls and never been heard. This is not the kind of film you think it is. This movie doesn't say it but its a ghost story. The building looks like a haunted house inside. Ray has the ability to disappear. The symbol on the window connects him to the building, and the same place is where a serial killer lived decades before, which is Ray. The mother of Ray appears and said he was never married. Either this is bad writing or there is more to Ray's background that was never explained.

He Has His Eyes On You.

[lost-in-limbo · 6/10 · 10 May 2008]

Laurie finds out her boyfriend has cheated on her and moves out. She finds a rundown apartment, and hires a builder Ray to renovate the whole interior. Soon they're embedded in a steamy sexual affair, but her continuous troubles with men eventually comes back to hurt her. But Ray is one not to let go so easy.

Whoa… now I can rip on Richard Dean Anderson's mullet, but for a made-for-TV presentation it's professionally directed, grippingly written and resourcefully acted. That's what counts. Now onto the mullet… only kidding. The story's outline is basic, if no-frills (yep melodramatic lifetime feel), but it's the twisty developments that helps it cruise along. When you think you got it penned out, if offers another surprise and it can be rather over-the-top (just waiting for the climax!). One thing though, it could've gone without trying to hand-feed us the possibilities and concentrating on them when we've already figured it out. There are some vague plot devices evident, and the open-ended conclusion is sort of creepy. Anyhow it's evocatively penned (even with some implausible occurrences), and can be a tense psychological exercise. Commendably directed by Peter Markle who models it with lavished touches, free flowing camera work and an arrestingly enticing (Hitchcock-like) music score. He constructs an eerie vibe with some quite suspenseful spurts and images. That glass carved eye pyramid in the window is something that's hard to forget, and especially how it's used it the dying minutes of the film. The sexual current is passionately intense, but obviously being a TV movie it's kept under wrapped. Marg Helgenberger is believably good and Richard Dean Anderson's sullen performance is terrifically projected. He's serious about his work, and it shows! David Marshall Grant, Melinda Culea, and Joe Pantoliano offer solid support.

Best Lifetime Movie. Ever.

[mhaun-1 · 9 November 2004]

This film is what keeps me coming back to the Lifetime Movie Network screaming "I want more!!!"

Plot? Who needs it?

Character development? What's that?

Richard Dean Anderson? Yes, please! Give me more of that mullet.

Anyway, our good friend RDA is some kind of handyman hired to do some work fixing up this chick's apartment (I can't recall the actress' name).

What happens next? Let's just say that RDA takes his work very seriously. And by serious I mean super evil!!

He totally builds walls within the walls of this woman's apartment. He spies on her all the time, and kills a bunch of her friends.

Why doesn't she hear him rummaging around the inside of her walls like a drunken squirrel? Who cares! This is good stuff.

Not only does he live inside the walls, but he also builds elaborate metal doors that he uses to trap her inside her own apartment. You read right...trap her inside her own apartment!

That's crazy! That's scary! That's so Lifetime!

Does she escape? I won't say...just watch...if you DARE!!!!

Better Than A Blue Screen; Thanks To The EYE

[thebrewmeisterphelps · 1/10 · 3 November 2003]

Macgyver sucks. Marg Helgenberger (?!?) is horrid. The plot is predictable. But the eye? The eye is AMAZING! I tell you, when Lifetime Movie said that this was on following ROTOR, I was already looking for something else faster than you can say "Snap Dandy". The camera work looks like a first time college student at a rave, especially the first outdoor scene on the patio where I suspect the viewer is meant to feel motion sickness (or maybe it's the dialogue doing that). Overall, I completely suspected that this was intended to fulfill some cock-en-eyed television contract of Macgyver's.

But then the eye came on the scene, and I was all eyes myself. Helgenberger is looking for a cheap apartment in the Big Apple when she comes upon yet another rundown sleaze-hole. But just as she is planning to give it up, she perchances upon the eye pyramid in the window. She stares at it just long enough, and then...the sun shines through and mesmerizes her. She MUST have the apartment. And then Macgyver sees the eye, too.

And it all gets better from there.

P.S. Beware the Guillotine Room!

A movie worth watching

[Annie-37 · 9/10 · 27 November 1998]

I have seen this movie 5 times, and I like it. I wouldn't give it top points, but it is worth watching. The plot has great potential, but falls short in places. Anderson and Helgenberger are very convincing in their parts, and are not the reason the movie gets 2 1/2 stars instead of 4, for example. It is a good thriller, and has a really suspenseful ending.

Creepy But Excellent Thriller!

[BreanneB · 10/10 · 18 October 2006]

This movie was a creepy but excellent thriller. I came across this film yesterday when I was desperate for something to watch and it looked interesting. I'm really glad I watched it. Marg Helgenberger, is excellent as Laurie Fisher, a young designer who falls in love with her contractor.

When Laurie Fisher decides to buy a totally trashed apartment (you should see the bathtub), and renovate it she hires Ray Bellano. Not long after she hires him they fall in love. But she then realizes that he isn't what she thought he was.

As time goes on she realizes that he is a vicious violet rapist, sociopathic liar, and nasty person. Then weird and terrifyingly horrible things happen, she is being stalked and almost gets killed and her friends get killed. Then she discovers the truth about him and the house she lives in.

quite watchable

[myriamlenys · 8/10 · 24 December 2022]

I thought : why not write another review about a movie based on a short story by Christopher Fowler ? So on to "Through the eyes of a killer", which is based on Fowler's "The master builder".

"Eyes" is a well-made thriller (or, if you prefer, a well-made mix of thriller and horror) about a vivacious young woman who buys a run-down apartment in the hope of turning it into a sleek but cosy modern home. Alas, it turns out that her new home is far from being the private little sanctuary she expected... The movie taps into the near-universal human fear of being tracked and spied-upon in one's own nest, which is supposed to be a place of absolute safety. There's a steadily growing sense of both paranoia and claustrophobia.

Since I don't want to diminish your viewing pleasure through an abundance of spoilers, I'll just add that the movie works up to a suspenseful finale and that it features a remarkably creepy villain. The music is pretty good, too.

Recommended.

Wooow man

[cotandreea · 10/10 · 21 July 2020]

I almost went No comment for this movie. Acting was really nice. All the actors brought their A-Game and I was a little bit surprised to see Tippi Hedren in this kind of movie. All that being said, congrats to all the cast and crew.

Raw, Dark, Gritty, Horrific, Sexy, Intense and Disturbing; NOT BAD FOR A TV FILM !

[alleywayambush · 9/10 · 3 October 2022]

I saw this a few times as a teen in the late-90's. I remember it being epitomally raw, intense and seductive, particularly as a naive 13-15-year-old

Basically, a female artist hires a 'hunky' handyman to do work on her flat. He repeatedly rapes her, much to her delight; surely THE most disturbing aspect of the film ! Murders and other assaults follow; something to do with a glass eye in the flat window. (?)

If you fancy Marg Helgenberger and like seeing her having sex in black lingerie then this film is for you ! If you like all things of a dark, gritty and abyssal urban nature, it's for you and all ! Horror fans; no intro required !

Let's give it 9/10 for being sexy, gritty, disturbing and infectious. And for those of us who remember it, let's hope there's some videos of it lying around somewhere, never mind a TV slot !