Customer Reviews

The Girl with the Hungry Eyes

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Kristina Fulton (sometimes billed as Christina Fulton) is one sexy vampire.

The plot's a bit strange; an old hotel resurects Kristina as a vampire after she committed suicide, then asks her to go & kill the person holding the deeds to the hotel (does the hotel want the deed so it own's itself? Hotel Liberation! Free the Hotels!)

But, visually, it's very interesting. And, did I say, Kristina's a sex godess? I've been waiting for this to come onto DVD for ages.

The Girl With the Hungry Eyes is based upon a short story by Frietz (sp?) Leiber and it's about a woman in the 1930s (owner of the fashionable South Beach hotel, The Tides) who kills herself because the man she wanted was cheating on her. Flash foward 60 years and the hotel is about to be demolished. The evil place brings Louise (Jon Jacobs' alum Christina Fulton) back to life as a vampire. With every person she kills, the hotel restores itself. Will Louise save her soul?

I came to see this movie after viewing director Jon Jacobs' newer film "Lucinda's Spell". Jacobs must have a love affair with Ms. Fulton because he uses her alot, but the combination works. Also try to spot the director in a small but memorable role of Henry! He's not that bad an actor.

"The Girl with the Hungry Eyes" is a short vampire story by Fritz Lieber. This movie takes the basic premise of the book- about a vampire who's a model and expounds on it. And it works. Christina Fulton makes a good vampire, by the way.

There is the 'official' release of this on the dvd, which is the shorter edited version, which has far superior picture quality in that the colours are bright, whereas the longer, unedited version, also on the disc, has dull colours, but the shorter, official, release is spoilt by an annoying voice over, which really wasn't necessary, and seems only to be there to 'explain' more fully the story to what seems to be felt of as a dim American audience on the part of the makers. The longer version, which I saw first, is far, far superior in every way, apart from the dull colours, to the shortened version, so anyone seeing this should make sure to see the longer version first and see it how the director intended. It is based on the short story of the same name by Fritz Lieber, but in that 'the girl' remains nameless and an enigma, whereas in the movie, she is given a background supposedly explaining why she is the way she is, when the story works better without this, as she doesn't need an explanation, quite simply, she just - 'is'. And the written story conveys this very well. Never forget the last paragraph of the story where The Girl reveals her full intent, "I want that broken bike, I want your blood on the cobblestones, baby!" or whatever it was, she said. It said it all in that final paragraph. A brilliant story and one of the best I ever read when very very young indeed. ;-)

A funny, satyrical, femme fatale Vampire flick. Excellent camera work and a wonderful comedic performance from Christina Fulton and super cool direction from maverick indie filmmaker Jon Jacobs

Now here is an unusual treat, this DVD has 2 versions on it, the original shorter Columbia Tri-Star cut and the Director's sexier and more sophisticated version.

Personally I prefer the Directors cut. Not only is it naughtier, but the soundtrack and sound design are inspired
as opposed to the Schlockier Studio overdub.

What do you think?

<strong>The Girl with the Hungry Eyes</strong> (Jon Jacobs, 1995)

At the very end of <em>The Girl with the Hungry Eyes</em>, there's a title card that says the film is dedicated to Fritz Leiber, on whose short story it is based. It gave me pause, mostly because I'm shocked Fritz Leiber's moldering corpse didn't heave itself out of the grave, track down everyone who worked on this piece of [censored for Amazon consumption], and murder them all in the most grisly manner possible. I've seen some godawful adaptations of Leiber over the years (and no matter how many times I am told this, I refuse to believe Romero didn't have <em>Conjure Wife</em> right at the front of his brain when writing the execrable <em>Jack's Wife</em>), but this one truly takes the cake.

Plot: Louise (<em>Snake Eyes</em>' Christina Fulton, better known for being Nic Cage's ex and Stian Thoreson's current than anything in her film career) is a vampire with a long-standing connection to the Tides Hotel, a South Beach fixture slated for demolition. The spirit of the hotel--or maybe it's a demon, I have no idea--sends Louise out on a quest to find the safety deposit box that holds the title deed to the hotel in order to stop it from being demolished. I think. (It's very hard to understand the spirit/demon/whatever's voice; watch the movie with subtitles if you get a chance.) This leads her to Carlos (Isaac Turner in his only big-screen appearance to date), a down-on-his-luck artist who's squatting in an abandoned building, in debt up to his neck, and doesn't seem to realize he's the owner of a prime piece of South Beach real estate. (Or maybe he's not and just happens to have the key, I don't know.) In any case, he mistakes her for a new model, and during the photo shoot, the key gets itself lost, leading the two of them to look for it.

Oh, and of course Louise is a vampire, which means she has to kill people now and again to keep that healthy glow. The murder scenes are the unintentionally funniest in the movie. You know how in crappy low-budget movies, you see the knife head towards the victim, and then the camera cuts to a white wall, which then gets a spray of red Karo syrup? (And the worse the movie is, the bigger the splash?) It's like that, but all kinds of funnier. When Louise kills someone, there's a power surge in the Tides Hotel, and the lights in the top floor flicker, with the straight-from-stock electrical buzzing noise. It's a kind of demented genius, really, in that it makes everything else in the movie seem marginally less stupid. And this is a movie that needs it. The acting is terrible across the board. The effects are worthless, what few of them there are. The plot is close to incoherent, and the demon/spirit/whatever whose commands to Louise are (I assume) supposed to pull it all together is unintelligible, shooting any possibility of this movie being in any way watchable in the foot. Repeatedly. With a musket that has to be reloaded between shots. By halfway through the film, I was rooting for the development company (whom we never actually see, so I was free to imagine David Caruso cackling and rubbing his hands together as the bad guy). *

I finally got my hands on this after wanting it for years, and just finished watching it...oh my. Based on a Fritz Leiber story, but fleshed out a bit more, so to speak.

Takes place in Miami, which is a great setting for it. Christina Fulton plays the owner of a hotel in 1937, who ends up hanging herself, and is somehow brought back to life by the hotel (The Tides) and made to help keep the hotel alive by killing. She happens across a photographer, Carlos, who is in financial trouble, and becomes a model for him. Carlos stands to make a lot of money from her pictures when an interested party sees them, but Carlos can't find her and doesn't know how to reach her...but she always comes back.

Christina Fulton makes this film, but I didn't particularly think she was sexy, especially not when she moved all hunched over, or when she displayed her too-wide mouth full of teeth (with fangs, of course).

This is definitely an offbeat vampire flick, and one does not exactly expect vampires in Miami, but the themes, location, and atmosphere make it work. 4 out of 5 stars.

What a mad woman! What a bod! And on top of it, she makes for a perfectly sensible modern vampire, and there is such a thing. I'd take my chances with her anyonetime...my heroine... Thankyou Jon Jacobs. I just recently heard about Lucinda's Spell, and that you got the same georgeously crazed dame starring in it. Stoked!

Good looking guy meets, great looking girl, and all goes wrong from there. Luckily sexismagic, and so is New Orleans, and as long as you don't bend over to often or go down any dark alleys you could be safe. But be warned on the night when all the witches call up Baltain or you might be in trouble. Lucinda is Funny and sexy, Jason is an out of the ordinary hero, and all the witches are very naughty. Jon Jacobs has suceeded again in making a classic cult movie. Watch IT.