Pyro... The Thing Without a Face (1964)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

best movie i've ever seen.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

PYRO...THE THING WITHOUT A FACE is an obscure American-financed horror flick shot in Spain with a Spanish cast and crew and an American leading actor. Said actor is none other than old timer Barry Sullivan (VIOLENT NAPLES) playing a Ferris wheel repairman of all things, whose seemingly perfect life falls into disarray when he begins an affair with an unstable woman.What follows is a tempestuous story of romance, revenge, tragedy, and retribution, yet it's all done on a very low budget which robs the film of its impact. It's also a derivative work which reminded me of HOUSE OF WAX and HORROR OF THE BLACK MUSEUM in places although it doesn't have much of the impact of either of those two classic horror flicks.Sullivan is an okay actor but he has little to work with in his one-dimensional role here. The supporting cast are quite average although future Euro starlet Soledad Miranda, who would be killed in a car accident at the outset of her burgeoning cult career six years later, has a central role in the latter half of the proceedings. As a film, this just about gets by with a few Gothic moments and a couple of decent fiery set-pieces, but it's obscure for good reason, which is that it's simply not very good.

This is a strange story of infidelity, horror and revenge. I wouldn't say it was a great movie, it did hold my interest and there were some very scary moments in it. After a certain point when the revenge started...it was predictable. I'd compare it to 'House of Wax' in some ways. I rate it a 5 out of 10 for the acting by the leads and the off-beat story. Barry Sullivan was good and he delivered some very chilling lines, especially when he was telling his former mistress to run while she could. It's a film with the type of plot more often found in Spanish, Mexican or Italian made films of that time. It's not like the standard run of the mill USA/UK type horror films made back then.

Pre-dating FATAL ATTRACTION by decades, this proto-giallo depicts the nightmare Vance Pierson free-falls into when he breaks off his extramarital affair with sizzling (and mentally unbalanced) Laura Blanco. Before he leaves for good, Laura asks him one fatal question: If you weren't committed, would you stay with me? He answers yes and all hell breaks loose...Barry Sullivan and Martha Hyer were durable contract players in Hollywood for well over a decade before filming FUEGO (aka PYRO) and their considerable talents add immeasurably to the tale. Vance and Laura are Americans living in Spain and find themselves immediately drawn to each other. Vance is an engineer, transferred to Galacia to build a dam, while Laura, her life at a dead-end, is ready to cut her losses and move on. Vance knows he's wrong to pursue a sexual affair with her, not only because it would devastate his wife (nicely played for sympathy by Sherry Moreland), but because he also knows exactly what she is. When she tells him she's never loved anyone, he sardonically asks "Have you ever tried?" She lets that slide because she thinks she's finally found "the one". Laura has the same sensuous sex appeal Hyer gave to her role of prostitute Jennie Denton in THE CARPETBAGGERS the previous year. All fire and ice, her Laura is a scorching pyromaniac, undulating in platinum hair, skin-tight black leather pants and hot-pink top. Vance first sees her this way when he catches her trying to torch her house for the insurance money and falls for her, right then and there, completely forgetting he's married with children. There's also an excellent supporting cast including a very young Soledad Miranda (as Liz) as a small-time carnival cookie who temporarily tempts Vance away from his macabre dance of death with Laura. Fernando Hilbeck plays Julio, a friend and co-worker of Vance's who tries to warn him about how dangerous Laura is. Julio ought to know because he was involved with her before Vance became ensnared in her web.PYRO is also very Eurotrashy ...the way most gialli are. There's lots of nasty little touches put in for apparently no good reason. When Vance admires a picture of her daughter, Laura turns away, saying "Her father was my father." Later, when she catches her daughter igniting matches in a field, her daughter cries out "I'm not doing anything wrong, mommy!" What are we to make of this? That Laura's special brand of insanity is genetic? This film has all the ingredients of a great giallo. There's a gloved killer (more than one actually) and obsessive love and vengeance as motive. When Vance, horribly scarred and near death from the burns he received from trying (and failing) to save his family from the fire Laura purposely set (in an especially chilling scene), he whispers to her from his hospital bed: "Run! Hide!! Take your family and HIDE!!!" An eye for an eye.... The convoluted voice-over in the beginning by Julio is an existential bit of mumbo-jumbo about fate and the ferris wheel. Vance has a special affinity for ferris wheels and gets, fittingly, a job with a traveling carnival once he escapes from the hospital to avenge himself on Laura. The film begins and ends atop one and the dam Vance and Julio are working on is built on it's revolving principals. There's even a little toy ferris wheel on the nightclub table when Vance breaks if off with Laura. It's not hard to get the symbolism: What goes around, comes around...With a little more care and effort, this film could have been amazing. If the (second) killer's identity had been hidden from the audience awhile longer and a few more grisly murders of Laura's friends and family had been added, director Julio Coll would have been in competition with Mario Bava (who just filmed BLOOD AND BLACK LACE) as to who really made the first giallo. As it stands, PYRO is atmospheric, involving, creepy and sick. Guaranteed to induce nightmares in the impressionable and well worth checking out. You'll flip for red-hot Martha Hyer. Just don't get too close...what a smokin' way to BURN!

Love is a passion that burns like a fire. So it has been said for centuries. This cautionary tale takes a rather literal view of that assertion, and brings us a surprisingly good thriller.Vance Pierson (Barry Sullivan) is an engineer who moves to Spain for work related reasons. Accompanying him are his wife Verna (Sherry Moreland), and daughter Sally (oddly, this small part doesn't appear to be credited to the actress who played her). They are a happy family, crammed into a tiny apartment. So Vance decides to buy a house. He goes to look at a rather impressive one, and arrives just in time to stop the owner, Laura (Martha Hyer), from burning it down so she can collect the insurance money. While Vance convinces her that she'll do better with the proceeds from a sale of the house, sparks of a different kind fly between the two of them, and soon they are involved in a passionate affair. However, when first a co-worker, and then Verna learn of the affair, Vance decides it's time to end it. As he is breaking things off with Laura, he makes the mistake of telling her that if it weren't for Verna and Sally, he would be with her. Laura decides that perhaps the best thing to do is to get rid of Verna and Sally, and since she has already mapped out a strategy for burning down the house, she simply waits until Vance has gone out for the evening and Verna and Sally are asleep upstairs, and then she sets fire to it. Vance returns unexpectedly, and runs into the burning house to try to save his wife and daughter. Unfortunately, all he succeeds in doing is getting badly burned himself while Verna and Sally die in the fire. Laura goes to visit Vance in the hospital, and when she confirms Vance's suspicions that she set the fire, he orders her out of his room, telling her that if he ever comes across her again, he'll kill her. Horrified, Laura leaves. The action shifts forward a few years, and Vance, now horribly disfigured, and wearing a mask all the time, is a roustabout with a carnival. For some strange reason, the owner's daughter, Liz (Soledad Miranda) is smitten with him, but given Vance's past, he is understandably unwilling to get involved with her. And then one day the carnival arrives in the town where Laura lives...Given the setup, this could have been a really cheesy movie, but the writing is surprisingly good, giving the story twists and turns that keep it from becoming predictable, and a few nasty shocks that definitely grab the viewers' attention. Vance's ultimate revenge on Laura is presented in a way that is not satisfying, helping to point out that perhaps revenge was not the right solution to his problems. All in all, a more thoughtful script than one would expect from this kind of movie.From a production standpoint, the best part of the film was watching Laura set up the fire by splashing gasoline throughout the house, taking the added step up hooking the plumbing up to a gas can, and then setting a fuse to give herself time to get away. When the fire spreads through the house, it is an exciting, if frightening scene. Contrasted with that, the scene where Vance renders Laura unconscious, and sets her apartment on fire is much tamer, helping to make his revenge on her unsatisfying. And the makeup used to show Vance's face when he reveals his disfigurement was also impressive.The acting is a bit stylized, as was typical of the time period, but overall it is good. Sullivan gives an excellent portrayal of a complex man, delving into the dark corners of the mind of a man who first succumbs to lust, and then is driven by guilt and anger. Hyer's performance sizzles. Her beauty bewitches, and while her actions are deplorable, her regret at the outcome of what she has caused gives you a small amount of sympathy for her. Moreland's betrayed wife is well done, and the uncredited actress who plays Sally turns in a good, if occasionally cloying performance. The only real puzzle is Miranda, who gives us no clue as to what her character's attraction to Vance is all about, thus while her actions speak of good intentions, they make little sense, since we have no context in which to put them.A dark, cautionary tale, surprisingly well done. A curiosity piece, but one well worth seeing.