Eyes Behind the Stars (1978)

So much average

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Well... ahhh it started out really good then I have no idea what happened - it turned boring. Usually some films will start out slow then become good by the 30 to 45 minute mark but this film was the opposite! It was good for about 30 to 45 minutes then went very boring. What happened? It's like the writer had some great starting ideas for this film but didn't know what how to handle it after that.The very ending of this film claims that all the events really happened but at different times. Whether or not that is true or false is not my point but my point is it doesn't make a good film to have all these "true stories" jumbled together in one movie - it made for a very confusing and awful film that started out great! It's bad the filmmaker didn't realize he started out with a great idea and continued with it instead of messing up a film that had the potential to be a pretty good sci-fi.2.5/10

Franco Garofalo, some years before quite rightly winning best Oscar for his performance as the undead-baiting, wild eyed Santoro in Zombie Creeping Flesh, plays in this film an alien-baiting, wild eyed photographer called Peter. Now, Peter's out on a photo shot with girlfriend Sherry Buchanan (some years before SHE won best Oscar for having her vocal chords removed in Zombie Holocaust), and although he notes that it's rather creepy out there, it's not until he gets home when he notices he's captured some strange figures in the background.Heading back out to the photo shoot, Peter is then abducted by some aliens who also blind a dog and irradiate some poor fellow. Sherry informs her journalist friend that she's going looking for him, but not before giving him some negatives. Then she vanishes too. Now our hack Tony's going to have to do some investigating, which isn't going to be easy as the cops (led by Martin Balsam, who's hilariously been dubbed by a Yorkshire accent) tells him to take nowt to do w' it.Tony teams up with his UFOlogist mate Coleman and with his secretary also helping out, Tony has to deal with the cops, a special, creepy branch called the silencers, and those aliens themselves, who tend to turn up rather a lot to clear up some clues themselves.At first, I thought this was going to be a snore-fest. Although there was plenty of atmosphere to begin with, it looked like there wasn't going to be too much going on after that. I was wrong though. If it isn't the Silencers turning up now and again to put the squeeze on Tony and give him a kicking, the aliens also appear often to make sure no ones got evidence. These days it would be all posted on Youtube and the aliens could have just typed in 'Fake!' and that would be that.There's loads of double crosses, espionage, proper references to UFO occurrences, and a nice soundtrack. For a late seventies Italian film, there's absolutely no gore, sex and (thankfully) animals getting killed, so that's refreshing for a start. As daft as the aliens look, they still manage to be creepy, as does the final image of what happened to Peter.This is a nice diversion from the usual carnage. Those with patience might like it.

A nefarious government group tries to prevent news of aliens visiting Earth from being made public. Sound exciting and interesting? Well, it just ain't. Writer/directer Mario Gariazzo relates the meandering and uneventful story at a plodding pace, fails to deliver much in the way of either thrills or tension, and gets bogged down in way too much numbing tedious talk. Robert Hoffman as crusading journalist Tony Harris makes for a bland hero while token American name Martin Balsam is underused as an inspector investigating the disappearance of a photographer. The chintzy (not so) special effects don't help matters any. On the plus side, both the gorgeous Natalie Delon as Harris' assistant Monica Styles and the lovely Sherry Buchanan as traumatized model Karin Hale are real easy on the eyes. Gariazzo manages a few inspired bizarre moments, but they are not enough to overcome the general dullness. Marcello Menczer's wonky score hits the groovy syncopated spot. An instantly forgettable fizzler.

In this paranoia-driven potboiler, our reporter hero battles hindersome authorities, duplicitous co-workers, renegade UFO debunkers, and silent, skulking aliens. (Though capable of mind control and zapping objects from afar, it takes three of them to operate a control panel of about two dozen buttons.) The script clomps from event to event,leaving puzzlers aplenty. Why did the aliens blind the dog? Why do they fry the soldiers with radiation when they're only patrolling an empty landing site? And what space dudes worth their moon cheese abduct the ugly photographer first instead of his model? Inquiring minds want to know! Writer-director Mario Gariazzo apparently researched his subject by skimming a stack of UFO-themed tabloids as he took in a Sunn Classics double feature. (The closing screen crawl boasts that it's based on actual events...just like "Plan 9!") Some may feel burned by the abrupt finale, but it should still appeal to conspiracy cranks.