Eyes Of Fire 1983 Written and directed by Avery Crounse. Another movie from the All The Haunts Be Ours box set from Severin.
The movie is set in 1750 before the US became independent. A young woman and a child are found by the French military, the two tell the story of how they got nailed in a box and floated down the river. Their story starts with the hanging of the preacher for sleeping with two women. It's a tough town, they don't brook any sin there, the town elders were going to hang the adulterous woman too. Lucky for the preacher a witch, the preacher's other woman, magically breaks the rope and he falls to the ground. Before the towns people can get back to hanging him some followers show up with guns and rescue him. The preacher takes all this to be divine intervention, he locks the townspeople up, take some of their provisions and steals the town's ferry. Down river they go.
The husband of one of the preacher's flock arrives from a long trapping trip to find his wife gone. His daughter is the young woman found by the French. He sets out after the preacher. The ferry raft is attacked by natives, one man is killed and his wife hit in the head with a rock. The preacher strips the raft of some provisions and sets it adrift to attract the native's attention. The group set off on foot but it only takes a while for the natives to follow. The trapper has arrived and his wife rejects him. The natives chase the preacher's flock into an area covered in white feathers but don't follow. Something in the little valley scares the natives. The trapper wants to keep on going but the preacher overrules him.
During the movie the question in my head was always, why would anyone follow the preacher. He's a horrible man with no charisma, he's delusional, he makes one wrong decision after another, he never does any work or helps in anyway. His followers aren't quite at cult level and they slowly turn on him. The group finds a some cabins in a state of disrepair and at the preacher's insistence set up camp. Things go steadily south for the group after that. Some of the group die and some just vanish from the story. There's an evil presence in the forest that captures and magically binds people to trees. The group is attacked by naked spirits of some sort. The preacher sets out with his daughter and the young girl, heading for safety. He puts the girls in the box and that's the last they see of him. After hearing the story from the young woman the French aren't convinced that's what happened to the group. The movie ends with the fate of some of the group unknown.
The movie had a decent budget, $2.6 million, it made $12 million back. It got mixed reviews from the critics. It got released on VHS in 1987 and it has a score of 6.3 on the IMDb with 2400 votes. This is the first nice copy of the movie that's been available. They have some nice extras, there's a commentary, an earlier alternate cut of the film titled Crying Blue Skies, an interview with Crounse and three of his sort films. My only complaint about the commentary is the fellow yakking said like and you know so often it became annoying 20 minutes in. Ruined a fair commentary. It would have been more interesting to have Crounse doing a commentary, his interview was quite interesting.
I enjoyed the film more than I thought I would. I liked the Eyes Of Fire version more than the Crying Blue Skies cut which was 22 mins longer and and edited quite differently. I wasn't overly keen on the three shorts. I'd watch the film again sometime, I doubt I'll rewatch the alternate cut or the shorts again. Another film that isn't for everyone.
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