The Eyes of Charles Sand

I saw this originally in 1972 when it aired on TV, and I remember it scaring the living daylights out of me as a kid. Just recently purchasing it from the Warner Archive, I sat down to relive my teenage memories.

The film is about Charles Sand, a businessman who awakes from a vivid dream about his uncle, dead in his coffin, sitting up and pointing at him, with no pupils in the dead man's eyes. At the same time he is awakened by a phone call - his uncle has just died. His aunt Alexandra tells Charles that as the last living male member of the Sand family he has inherited "the sight" from his uncle. This "sight" will cause him to have visions from time to time in order to help people with some problem in their lives. It's not that Charles is a selfish or self-involved guy as much as this is not exactly a turn in his life that is welcomed. As he asks his aunt Alexandra - "Why me?".

Almost immediately he begins to have visions of a dead woman reaching out to him, of a dead man falling through a wall, and of a young woman with long red hair in a long fur coat.

It turns out that Emily Parkhurst (Sharon Farrell) of the wealthy prominent Parkhurst family is the red headed woman in trouble. She believes her brother is dead, and she says she continually sees visions of him, covered in blood. Now this is the part of the film that lost about one star from my rating. As Emily, Sharon Farrell is doing a most irritating Mod Squad version of Ophelia through about half of this movie. Nobody will take her seriously and from her behavior it is not hard to figure out why this is so. When Charles Sand gets involved, Emily's older sister tells Sand that the brother is in London and has written and called Emily several times since she claimed he was dead, but she just hangs on to her belief in his death beyond all reason. So now Sand is not only having to deal with doubts about his new gift, but doubts that the first person he has encountered since receiving this second sight is in trouble at all versus just being crazy.

The last ten minutes or so are very suspenseful and worth putting up with Ms. Farrell's over-the-top performance. I'd recommend it especially if you liked the old made for TV movies of the 70's.

Just one more thing. I really was scratching my head at first in response to the detached performance Joan Bennett gave as Charles' widowed aunt Alexandria when talking to Charles about his new found gift and the uncle's death. But then I realized it probably just fit in with what she already knew and what Charles' uncle wrote to him in the letter describing his new sixth sense "Neither man of God nor man of science can help you now. You are alone."

I was 10 years old in 1972, and absolutely fascinated by the occult/horror genre. As a faithful viewer of the TV series "Dark Shadows", "The Sixth Sense" and "Night Gallery", I was quite used to watching stories about ghosts, vampires, werewolves and the like. But nothing had prepared me for the night I accidentally tuned in to this Movie Of The Week. Those first couple of scenes featuring the dead guy with only the whites of his eyes scared me more than anything I'd ever seen. I honestly don't remember much else about this movie—I may not even have watched all of it. But still today, more than 30 years later, I get goosebumps just thinking about those scary white eyes!

This movie's greatest attributes are a few creepy moments, especially in the first part of the movie, and Bradford Dillman, who elevated everything he was in. It isn't as effective as other TV horror flicks from that era, such as The Night Stalker, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, The Horror at 30,000 Feet, The Norliss Tapes, and so on; but it's well worth a viewing or buying for 10 bucks on Amazon for fans of this particular subset of horror movies.

I watched this when I was around 12 or 13 and it's the only horror movie that I've ever switched off because I was too afraid to watch it alone.

I want to watch it again; not because I'm particularly braver now, but I have a girlfriend who I can cuddle up to if I need to gibber and bite my fingers down to the knuckles.

Seriously, I'm not easily scared but this film nearly made me crap myself when I watched it. Maybe it'd be different now; I don't know. All I do know is that it's the most terrifying film that I've ever seen, even if that does come from the perspective of someone who only saw it as a kid.

I remember watching this as a pre-teen and thinking it was totally cool. As a fond childhood memory, I ordered it on DVD recently when I found it at a good discount.

The concept is as cool as I remembered, but from an adult's viewpoint it has lots of flaws. The hysterics of both the female leads are way over the top. There are some fairly blatant continuity errors and visible film crew mistakes.

Also, do the fabulously wealthy really live in high-rise apartments where the elevator opens directly into their living room? And do the fabulously wealthy live in mansions without any security, then invite strangers in for coffee without knowing who they are?