Eyes Behind the Stars (1978)

An uncompromising and bleak effort, Eyes Behind the Stars is a surprisingly serious sci-fi conspiracy thriller with almost none of the goofiness you would expect from an Italian exploitation movie generally and especially from Mario Gariazzo who also made the spectacularly inept, tastless and boring Very Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind the same year! (Of course, the aliens in Eyes Behind the Stars could be classified as a bit silly-looking with their wool long johns pulled up over their heads and blue plastic visers covering their face, but their intelligence and technology are probably way too advanced for someone watching a 1970s Italian sci-fi film to properly grasp.)

One could be forgiven if you weren’t expecting this to out X-File The X-Files when everything starts exactly like 70% of typical Italian horror movies do – with a photoshoot involving a fashion model. But even though the woods are strangely silent and both their watches stop, no one pops out from behind a bush to lodge a space machete in their heads and they leave without further incident.

Only when the photographer returns to his darkroom and begins developing the photos does he notice all the damn aliens photobombing his shots! How in the hell is going to get that sweet spread in the 1979 Sears Big Book now?

Having already used up all his common sense, the photographer begins his campaign for a Darwin Awards nomination when he heads back to the woods in the middle of the night to investigate by himself. After recklessly involving an innocent homeowner and his dog in his confrontation with the aliens, he finds himself abducted. His fashion model soon looks for him in the woods, apparently meeting the same fate.

But guess what aliens? They were friends with the nosiest reporter in all of England! And who is friends with the Inspector in charge of the investigation of the missing persons! And he’s got the negatives to prove the aliens were milling around in Sherwood Forest playing doctor with the locals!

But guess what nosy reporter? There’s a shadowy group of government agents known as the Silencers whose job it is to keep a lid on any loose talk about UFOs, little green men and flying saucers! And if it means that they have lay a beat down on a nosy reporter a couple of times, well there’s no shame in being collateral damage in a war against extraterrestrial douches bent on fingering regular folks with who knows what! Your planet thanks you for your sacrifice, nosy reporter!

After being pounded within an inch of life at least two different times by the Silencers, the nosy reporter named Tony finally starts to wonder if there isn’t a traitor in his midst feeding them information about his activities. After falsely accusing the only guy who is really on his side, a UFO researcher, he finally figures out who is double-crossing him and uses that person to kidnap the missing model from the Silencers who themselves had kidnapped her from a regular hospital after she was discovered catatonic miles from the original scene.

Tony’s plan is simple, yet uniquely Italian trash movie. Using a telepath he knows, he’s going to have her mentally make contact with the unresponsive model and do a Q&A mindmeld with her! It leads to a final, grim confrontation with the Silencers and the aliens that fits in perfectly with other gloomy 1970s conspiracy movies that emphasize the powerlessness of regular people against an overwhelming and uncaring State solely dedicated to perpetuating its own agenda against any truth it doesn’t like.

While it aims for a bit more than the usual sci-fi junk coming out of Italy at the time (Star Crash, Escape From Galaxy 3, The Beast in Space), it threatens to talk us to death, the only action coming from the Silencers punching Tony or when Tony viciously smacks around the person who betrayed him. The government is covering up UFOs. I get it. You don’t have to have like 10 scenes of people yammering about it. Can we freaking move on?

The interior and exterior (along with the previously mentioned aliens) of the spaceship are as laughably bad and cheap as you would expect and the cacophony of earsplitting sounds used throughout the film’s soundtrack will make you want to make sure your dog is staying at a friend’s when you are watching. Still, if you grew up thinking The X-Files was groundbreaking in its portrayal of both our government and aliens as being enemies of the people, Eyes Behind the Stars did it 15 years earlier and with not nearly the smug self-satisfaction as its more famous imitator. And it did it in 90 minutes, not years. (And you know this is the real grindhouse/drive-in experience since it was made back when everyone smoked cigarettes, not just shady evil dudes like in wimpy 1990s TV shows.)

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