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EYES OF FIRE
1983
Director
Avery Crounse
Starring
Dennis Lipscomb
Guy Boyd
Rebecca Stanley
Karlene Crockett
Runtime
108 minutes
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In this supreme work of American folk horror, a rogue 18th century preacher and his colonial followers make their way downriver to establish a new settlement beyond the western frontier. There they encounter a forest cursed by strange spirits that will bring an apocalyptic madness upon them.
“Cursed land has always been a preoccupation of the American cinema, and this has been especially true for horror films set in colonial periods,” writes Willow Maclay. “American cinema of the past has never quite had the guts to reckon with the holocaust of its aboriginal peoples. The best they have done are horror movies or westerns where the shadow of immense death hangs over the film like a great plague, influencing everything. What drives Avery Crounse’s EYES OF FIRE is the tension in whether or not America is inherently cursed, or if its curse was an accumulation of innocent blood spilled, resulting in the total decay of the land, and her people. Cinema takes up space. It spreads out, transforming land into image and context and meaning and art, and EYES OF FIRE understands that it comes at a cost.”
So let's roll it back to the beginning and reckon with the fact that America has always been a surreal dreadmare fable of naked mud ghosts, evil tree demons, and decapitated cow heads with blood tears.
Screening in the director’s extended CRYING BLUE SKY cut.
“Cursed land has always been a preoccupation of the American cinema, and this has been especially true for horror films set in colonial periods,” writes Willow Maclay. “American cinema of the past has never quite had the guts to reckon with the holocaust of its aboriginal peoples. The best they have done are horror movies or westerns where the shadow of immense death hangs over the film like a great plague, influencing everything. What drives Avery Crounse’s EYES OF FIRE is the tension in whether or not America is inherently cursed, or if its curse was an accumulation of innocent blood spilled, resulting in the total decay of the land, and her people. Cinema takes up space. It spreads out, transforming land into image and context and meaning and art, and EYES OF FIRE understands that it comes at a cost.”
So let's roll it back to the beginning and reckon with the fact that America has always been a surreal dreadmare fable of naked mud ghosts, evil tree demons, and decapitated cow heads with blood tears.
Screening in the director’s extended CRYING BLUE SKY cut.