The Hypnotic Eye is a 1960 American horror film directed by George Blair from a screenplay by Gitta Woodfield and William Read Woodfield, Released by Allied Artists, it stars Jacques Bergerac, Allison Hayes (The Crawling Eye), Merry Anders (House of the Damned; Legacy of Blood), Eric “Big Daddy” Nord, and Ferdinand Demara, billed as “Fred Demara”. The film, which claimed to be filmed in the “HypnoMagic” process, has been called a “camp classic” and “misogynist“. Bergerac was the former husband of Ginger Rogers and Hayes had just starred in Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.
The police and a local doctor are baffled by bizarre cases in which women gruesomely disfigure themselves, apparently while in a trance. Meanwhile, mysterious hypnotist Desmond (Jacques Bergerac) is in town, mesmerising audiences with his act…
“The audience-hypnosis card could have been played much earlier in the film … bringing in the all-important gimmick without obliterating the story’s momentum right on the verge of the climax. Then we’d have the histrionic silliness nicely out of the way, enabling us to appreciate the more subtle aspects of Jacques Bergerac’s villainy. Even more importantly, Allison Hayes wouldn’t have to put one of the era’s truly great bad-girl performances on hold for an entire reel while Bergerac attempted to convince the viewers that they were helpless to stop themselves from acting like idiots at his command.” 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting
“A mainstream reviewer in 1960 would probably label The Hypnotic Eye as cheap exploitative trash. As horror, it’s a sadistic and misogynist conservative fantasy. The victims are all beautiful young women who don’t stay home nights to knit socks. Marcia and Dodie are definitely game gals ready for adventure. Women have been paying for original sins since time began, and the movie exploits that tension. We like Dodie and Marcia, yet we’ve all lined up and paid our money to see them murdered or burned up or worse. That’s what defines exploitation.” Glenn Erickson, DVD Talk
