Eyes of a Stranger (1981)

Film Title: Eyes of a Stranger

Released: March 27, 1981
Directed by: Ken Wiederhorn
Written by: Eric L. Bloom & Ron Kurz (as Mark Jackson)
Starring: Lauren Tewes, Jennifer Jason Leigh & John DiSanti

Plot: A news anchor starts to believe that her neighbor is the serial killer that has been terrorizing the city!

IMDb Score: 5.8/10
Rotten Tomatoes Score: No score
My Score: 2/5

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

In Eyes of a Stranger, Lauren Tewes (of Love Boat fame) is Jane, a Miami news anchor caring for her deaf, blind and mute younger sister, Tracy, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh in her feature film debut. The afflictions are apparently psychosomatic. She has suffered from them since she was kidnapped, severely beaten and left for dead as a little girl, which Jane feels responsible for. Meanwhile, a serial killer is stalking women in the city, raping and beating them before killing them. Before he attacks them, he usually calls them on the telephone repeatedly, toying with them, making increasingly obscene comments and threats. Due to what happened to Tracy, Jane is deeply affected by the story. When Jane sees a man in the parking garage of her apartment building change his shirt and put on a belt as he's getting out of his car, she suddenly becomes very suspicious. No, really, that's what she has to go on. She suddenly becomes convinced that this man, whom she finds out is named Stanley Herbert (played by John DiSanti), is a killer then sets out to prove it. Of course she's right but it takes a little breaking and entering into his apartment in order to try to gather evidence of his guilt. He comes home while she's in his apartment, of course, and she escapes by hanging off his ten story balcony and jumping onto the balcony below his. She then gets his phone number and decides to call and try to terrorize him in the same sort of way in which he does his victims. In the era before caller ID or even *69, anonymous calls were easier to make, apparently. She snidely refers to him as a "phone freak" while talking to him on the telephone then uses the same phrase the next night while delivering an editorial on the killings. He's able to connect the dots immediately! What's any respectable serial killer/rapist do? Break into her apartment, of course, and when he does, he finds Tracy home alone and attacks her. But wait! What's this? The trauma of being attacked again is evidently strong enough to counteract the trauma of her being attacked before and suddenly Tracy can see and hear again! Enough to grab Jane's loaded gun and shoot her attacker, anyway. As Tracy goes into the bathroom to clean up in the aftermath, she sees herself for the first time in years and takes a few minutes to look herself over. This gives Herbert enough time to reappear and attack Tracy once more in the bathroom. But Jane comes home to save the day, using the gun that Tracy used earlier, to shoot Herbert right in the forehead. As they embrace, Jane is shocked but overjoyed to hear Tracy stammer out, "Jane," the first word she has said since before her incident. This film reunited director Ken Wiederhorn with several of his previous collaborators. Writer Ron Kurz (credited here again as Mark Jackson) and actors DiSanti, Ted Richert, Robert Small, Dan Fitzgerald, Herb Goldstein and Sonia Zomina all had roles in King Frat and actor Luke Halpin was in Shock Waves, Weiderhorn's debut film. Scenes from Shock Waves appear here on TV as a late night monster movie. Effects wizard Tom Savini did the special make up effects, most of which were toned down to receive an R rating upon release. In a little nod to his work, a poster for Dawn of the Dead is seen outside of a movie theater. There is really only one scene which really goes over the top with the violence, one where DiSanti decapitates a man with a meat cleaver in one swipe. Other than that, the violence is treated in a much more realistic manner. According to the film's Wikipedia page, it debuted at number one in its open weekend at the box office, earning nearly half ($546,724) of it's total revenue ($1.1 million) in the opening weekend alone. I wasn't able to track down a trailer but here's a scene from the film.