Eyes Without a Face (1960)

98% of critics liked it
(42 reviews)
86% of users liked it
(7,022 ratings)

French director Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face (Les Yeux Sans Visage) is an unsettling, sometimes poetic horror film. Pierre Brasseur plays a brilliant plastic surgeon, Prof. Genessier, who has vowed to restore the face of his daughter, Christiane (Edith Scob), who was mutilated in an… More French director Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face (Les Yeux Sans Visage) is an unsettling, sometimes poetic horror film. Pierre Brasseur plays a brilliant plastic surgeon, Prof. Genessier, who has vowed to restore the face of his daughter, Christiane (Edith Scob), who was mutilated in an automobile accident. With the help of his assistant (Alida Valli), he kidnaps young women, surgically removes their facial features, and attempts to graft their beauty onto his daughter's hideous countenance. This naturally has an adverse effect on the "donors," some of whom commit suicide rather than go through life faceless. Franju's haunting, muted handling of basic horror material is what lifts Eyes Without a Face out of the ordinary and into the realm of near-classic. When the film failed to draw crowds under its original title, however, the distributors decided to exploit it as a two-bit "scare" flick with the new title The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 1 hr. 24 min.
Directed By: Georges Franju
Written By: Pierre Boileau, Jean Redon, Thomas Narcejac
Genres: Drama, Horror, Art House & International

In Theaters: Oct 24, 1962 Wide
On DVD: Oct 19, 2004
Studio: Criterion Collection

Critic Reviews

Variety Staff, Variety
It has some queasy scenes, but unclear progression and plodding direction give this an old-fashioned air.
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
As absurd and as beautiful as a fairy tale.
David Edelstein, Slate
Among the most disturbing horror films ever made.
Wesley Morris, Boston Globe
Outre as it is, never tires as hypnotic, touching, ghastly fun.
Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune
It infects your dreams with dread and desperation.
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Franju constructs an elegant visual work; here is a horror movie in which the shrieks are not by the characters but by the images.
Ian Berriman, SFX Magazine
Wedding lyrical beauty to a gruesome scenario, it bridges the chasm between arthouse poetry and exploitation voyeurism.
Rob Gonsalves, eFilmCritic.com
A classic of twisted gothic enchantment.
Steve Biodrowski, Cinefantastique
A compelling and clinically brilliant combination of French art film and shock horror.
Anton Bitel, Eye for Film
ends up occupying uncharted territories somewhere between the gothic horrors of Frankenstein, the fairytale lyricism of La Belle et la Bete, and the charnel-house realism of Franju's own abbatoir-set documentary Le Sang Des Betes.
Tim Brayton, Antagony & Ecstasy
Both a horror movie and a dreamy art film without peer.
David Parkinson, Empire Magazine
Sharp as a scalpel, soft as a caress, this is a weird masterwork.
Mark Bourne, DVDJournal.com
In its sedate, measured virtuosity, eloquently haunting imagery abuts the queasily naturalistic. It's both beautiful and grisly, lyric and sinister.
Mark Bourne, DVDJournal.com
Criterion's DVD offers a clean, uncut print and flawless anamorphic transfer (1.66:1) that preserve Schufftan's shades and tones with excellent contrast and clarity. The original French soundtrack is clean and robust (even for Criterion)....
Geoff Andrew, Time Out
A marvellous movie in the fullest sense.
Cole Smithey, ColeSmithey.com
This is a truly haunting horror movie.
Chris Fujiwara, Boston Phoenix
Les yeux sans visage [is] a balance between cruelty and tenderness that has rarely been attempted in cinema.
James Kendrick, Q Network Film Desk
a visually elegant, but deeply disturbing portrait of a scientist playing God for intensely personal reasons
Rudy Joggerst, Reel.com
Franju understood well enough how to transform writers' Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac's pulp novel into an intelligent horror film that touches upon many social concerns.

Read all 19 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Graham J

A horror classic that is still shocking today.
Sophie B

A fantastic film with an original narrative and great performances from all the cast. I didn't expect too much but it really did justice to this era of filmmaking. The only problems were it wasn't exactly medically correct (for this time anyway, I'm unsure of how… More
A fantastic film with an original narrative and great performances from all the cast. I didn't expect too much but it really did justice to this era of filmmaking. The only problems were it wasn't exactly medically correct (for this time anyway, I'm unsure of how advanced they were then). Also it just seemed to end. I realise that the two got their comeuppance and died after killing all those other poor girls yet I want to know what happened to Christiane. Where did she go? Did everyone find out what they were doing there? What did the girl who was set free do? Overall a brilliant film that I'd definitely recommend!
Lanning :

Roger Ebert, please calm down. With apologies to Misael and XTC: Excruciating -- and I don't mean that in a good way. Walter, I almost added this sucker to our infamous list -- and it was a free download! I guess it takes way more to creep me out… More
Roger Ebert, please calm down. With apologies to Misael and XTC: Excruciating -- and I don't mean that in a good way. Walter, I almost added this sucker to our infamous list -- and it was a free download! I guess it takes way more to creep me out than when I was young. If I have one positive thing to say about this, uh, experience, it's that the animals ultimately rule. I laugh as I type that, thinking about Willard ordering his rats to KILL. One star for the triumph of animals, and one star for making me think about Willard. The only laugh derived from this -- what was that word? Oh, yes, "experience." And I'm talking 180 from Jimi Hendrix here. Oh, and another positive: At least this was more interesting than suffering through The Social Network.
Stella D

seriously creepy. from the writers of diabolique and vertigo. alida valli was soo evil and the ending was just beautiful. hey does anyone remember that billy idol song? 'les yeux sans vis-age...'
Randy T

An obsessed surgeon becomes a serial killer in order to provide his disfigured daughter with skin grafts. Exquisitely gruesome.
El Hombre I

An atmosphere of dread and sinister obsession with sudden moments of graphic violence. One of the horrors is watching the surgical procedures in their entirety in a staged and detached fashion. A bit slow at first, but art-house sensibility and horror were key ingredients to make it… More
An atmosphere of dread and sinister obsession with sudden moments of graphic violence. One of the horrors is watching the surgical procedures in their entirety in a staged and detached fashion. A bit slow at first, but art-house sensibility and horror were key ingredients to make it a favorite. A bonus on the dvd from Franju is a darkly comic documentary based on slaughterhouses that's not suited for vegetarians. <a href="http://s273.photobucket.com/albums/jj203/goji9000/?action=view¤t=Surgery2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj203/goji9000/Surgery2.jpg" border="0" alt="Eyes Without A Face"></a>
_kelly .

Horror Not to Miss List Commentary: Great cinematography and a Gothic plot quite controversial for a feature film on its time. Compared to Hitchcock's Psycho in terms of visual language, it does deliver but didn't strike me as the "perfect piece" it was hyped to me… More
Horror Not to Miss List Commentary: Great cinematography and a Gothic plot quite controversial for a feature film on its time. Compared to Hitchcock's Psycho in terms of visual language, it does deliver but didn't strike me as the "perfect piece" it was hyped to me as. Still, most viewers will be able to bite into this a bit more firmly, as my big gripe was predictability of this film within the whole of Gothic horror tales.
Drew S

Stark, surreal and almost poetically beautiful, Eyes Without a Face is likely to be the most unique film I've seen in a very long time. The visual composition surges with grace, right down to every last detail, and it all feels summarized by that bizarre mask that Christiane… More
Stark, surreal and almost poetically beautiful, Eyes Without a Face is likely to be the most unique film I've seen in a very long time. The visual composition surges with grace, right down to every last detail, and it all feels summarized by that bizarre mask that Christiane wears. A perfect face hiding something truly horrible. This film made me feel many ways - touched, curious, horrified, darkly amused, nervous, shocked, sad. It is both human and inhuman at the same time, striving desperately to lend dignity to the barbaric practices that the doctor runs through. It is hard to find a clear villain, and when the film finishes you're left unsure as to where your allegiances lie. Eyes Without a Face is clearly-written and structured extremely well, but it is not immune to ambiguity. Fortunately, it only adds to the mystery of the film, rather than detracting from it. The movie can't help but fall victim to the problems inherent in any 50-year-old horror movie, but it is still extraordinarily crafted. See this.
Michael G

Eyes Without a Face definitely takes a while to get going but it's worth it. Whoever did the lighting for the first act needs to get new glasses. The surgery scene came off as a bit contrived, but if you watch the interview with Franju in the special features it makes sense. It… More
Eyes Without a Face definitely takes a while to get going but it's worth it. Whoever did the lighting for the first act needs to get new glasses. The surgery scene came off as a bit contrived, but if you watch the interview with Franju in the special features it makes sense. It wasn't really made clear who was the crazy one at the end but either way the final scene is so incredibly haunting you don't really care.
Pierluigi P

original, dark, and fun french thriller, written by the same duo who made possible Hitchcock's Vertigo and Clouzot's Diaboliques
Tsubaki S

Very atmospheric horror film that compensates it's simple story with strong visuals. Very ahead of it's time.
Tim S

Beautiful disturbing film. You can clearly see the influence it's had on other films.
Rubia Carolina .

I didn't want to see but couldn't take my eyes off the surgery scene. Inside the whole context of the movie, you end up "believing" that such face replacement could easily happen. I was in doubt about what was going to happen in the end: a police intervention or… More
I didn't want to see but couldn't take my eyes off the surgery scene. Inside the whole context of the movie, you end up "believing" that such face replacement could easily happen. I was in doubt about what was going to happen in the end: a police intervention or the daughter's turned out againts the doctor. In spite of the birds freedom metaphor had been a bit odd, I think it was the best choice/end.
Greg S

With his daughter forced to wear a blank porcelain mask to hide the scars from an automobile accident, a brilliant plastic surgeon will go to any lengths to find a cure for her disfigurement. The pace is a bit too measured at times (they could have squeezed in one more victim), but… More
With his daughter forced to wear a blank porcelain mask to hide the scars from an automobile accident, a brilliant plastic surgeon will go to any lengths to find a cure for her disfigurement. The pace is a bit too measured at times (they could have squeezed in one more victim), but the images are beautiful and haunting.
Chris B

On of the most artistic Horror films I've seen to date, Eyes Without a Face examines a doctor's guilt and obsession with fixing his daughter's mutilated face. It was the father who caused the disfigured face of the young daughter and he is so obsessed that he seeks to… More
On of the most artistic Horror films I've seen to date, Eyes Without a Face examines a doctor's guilt and obsession with fixing his daughter's mutilated face. It was the father who caused the disfigured face of the young daughter and he is so obsessed that he seeks to fix her face himself. In order to do this he has his mistress, whose face he repaired, scope out and lure young beautiful women back to the doctor's secluded home. At this home the doctor has a secret lab behind trap doors and hidden in the basement. It's here that the young women are sedated and their faces cut off in order to give his daughter the face she had lost. The film is amazing to behold and presents a disturbed man and his terrifying quest that consumes him. The dark and wonderfully filmed settings and imagery are what really elevates the film above and beyond most other in the genre. Highly recommended to horror fans and anyone that enjoys a tale of the macabre.
Lesley N

Creepy black-and-whitey Frenchy from the 60's
Anthony V

Underrated horror classic.
Marion R

An interesting film, it seems like all French films start off great and with a punch, but then loses steam. I absolutely loved the circus like soundtrack, really nice music to accompany the film.
Wu C

Very strange and creepy. Still holds up with age.