Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.0

Death Has Blue Eyes Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 25, 2021

Nico Mastorakis may not be everyone's first choice for "international film impresario deserving wider recognition", but based on the often hilarious and completely enjoyable supplements he participates in himself on several Blu-ray releases of his films, he might be savvy party goers' first choice for "international film impresario to sit next to at the dinner table", based on his seemingly inexhaustible supply of anecdotes about his long career. Despite what some curmudgeonly reviewer (namely, me) may have said about Nico Mastorakis on . . . Nico Mastorakis included on The Zero Boys as a supplement, that featurette, along with others like Hired to Direct included with Hired to Kill , an Interview included with Island of Death , Blowing the Wind included with The Wind, Keepin' It to Myself included with Bloodstone, and/or Swept by the Tide included with Blood Tide , Mastorakis is frequently funny, obviously wise to the ways of showbiz in general and the movie industry in particular, and a raconteur of the first order. Death Has Blue Eyes was Mastorakis' first feature film, after years spent in the trenches of the television world, and one might assume that considering how relatively early in his career it came, Mastorakis would not have that much to say about it. One would be assuming incorrectly, as another wonderfully enjoyable and even sweet featurette on this disc makes clear, a featurette which is made even more ingratiating due to the fact that Arrow arranged for a little "surprise birthday party" for Mastorakis, who turns 80 on April 28 of this year, in the opening moments of the piece.

I'm just going to come out and say it: take a look at the first screenshot accompanying this review, and tell me if you think that's a blue eye. It belongs to actress Maria Aliferi, who plays Christine (Hristina in the original Greek), the focal character of this supposedly "paranormal" thriller which sees Christine's gaze be virtually Medusa-like, albeit without all those pesky snakes. The disconnect in eye color is just one of several logical inconsistencies Death Has Blue Eyes offers, and this is another Mastorakis effort where reciting "go with the flow" may be helpful, if not ultimately completely successful.

As both Mastorakis and Aliferi get into in some of the supplements on this disc, Death Has Blue Eyes was produced by Greece's so-called "King of Porn", and Mastorakis wasn't above letting some "tasteful" nudity enter the story he created about a woman with telepathic and/or telekinetic powers which can kill. That means the film has several tangents that just kind of appear, including some soft core sex scenes and other, arguably more random, elements where topless women can just wander into the frame to, you know, answer the phone or something.

The film also has an undeniable homoerotic aspect with regard to the two best friends who are more or less coerced into protecting Christine. The two men are Ches Gilford (Chris Nomikos) and Robert Kovalski (Peter Winter), who (re?)team up when Bob arrives in Athens on a vacation, and it soon becomes clear the two are kind of wheelers and dealers who aren't above a bit of larceny, which in fact ironically makes them marks for Christina's protective mother Geraldine (Jessica Dublin), who makes it clear to the boys as she "recruits" them as bodyguards that she knows exactly what they've been up to and would be happy to get the police involved. There actually are some kind of "men in black" lurking in the background, anyway, evidently out to use Christine for nefarious motives, unless, that is, it's Geraldine who is really a villain.

All of this actually makes less sense than this summary might indicate, and the film's frequent dalliances (in every sense of that word) also add to the often chaotic feeling of it all. Mastorakis states in the featurette devoted to him that after having endured the slings and arrows (no pun intended) of outrageous television fortune, he saw Death Has Blue Eyes as his "revenge" on those who perhaps didn't take his talent seriously, but the results here may be variable for some viewers in terms of any perceived comeuppance Mastorakis was able to achieve. The film is certainly scenic (again, in more than one way), but it's also decidedly odd and arguably too underdeveloped to ever register fully.

Death Has Blue Eyes Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Death Has Blue Eyes is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. An optional Academy Ratio version is also offered. Arrow's insert booklet contains the following information on the transfer:

Death Has Blue Eyes / To koritsi vomva is presented in 1.33:1 and 1.85:1 aspect ratios with mono audio. The film was restored by director Nico Mastorakis and Angelos Argyroulis at SteFilm, Athens. The original 35mm camera negative was scanned, graded, and restored in 2K resolution. The soundtrack was remastered from the optical track.

Arrow continues to offer appealing presentations of the Mastorakis filmography with Death Has Blue Eyes, though this film may not have the same consistent levels of suffusion and clarity that some other Arrow releases have enjoyed. A few moments here and there can look pretty hazy and ill defined (see screenshot 8 and its corresponding 1.33:1 version in position 22), but on the whole detail levels are commendable through the bulk of the film. The palette is nicely suffused, but can tilt just slightly toward kind of ruddy purples at times. A few interior scenes look considerably grittier than most of the presentation, but again generally speaking grain resolves nicely and there are no big compression hiccups. My score is 4.25.

Death Has Blue Eyes Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Death Has Blue Eyes features an LPCM 2.0 Mono track that does reveal a bit of brittleness at higher amplitudes, but which delivers dialogue well enough. The film has some set pieces that offer decent use of sound effects, and there

Death Has Blue Eyes Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• An Interview with Maria Aliferi (HD; 17:49) is a newly done piece, and I'll just say Aliferi's eyes look green in this one, too. In Greek with English subtitles.


• Nico Mastorakis In His Own Words (HD; 24:43) begins with the kind of sweet "surprise" birthday greeting for Nico, along with a couple of parodies of major film studio production mastheads, before giving way to Mastorakis, who recounts his adventures in television (along with some kind of fun vintage clips) before getting into some of the background on Death Has Blue Eyes.


• Dancing With Death (HD; 42:03) is basically an audio supplement offering tracks from the score by Nikos Lavranos presented in Dolby Digital 2.0.


• Trailers

  Theatrical Trailer (HD; 2:25)

  
  

  Extended Theatrical Trailer (HD; 3:32)

• Image Gallery (HD; 4:10)

Additionally, Arrow provides its typically nicely appointed insert booklet, this one with an essay about Mastorakis by Julian Grainger, cast and crew information and an "about the transfer" page.

Death Has Blue Eyes Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Some fans of Bacharach and David may remember a song they wrote for Promises, Promises called "Whoever You Are, I Love You", which had the following lyric which is perhaps a propos to Death Has Blue Eyes:

Sometimes your eyes look blue to me
Although I know they're really green.

That potential stumbling block aside, Death Has Blue Eyes is probably never sufficiently clear as to what exactly is going on, even as it manages to work in any number of naked women and soft core sex scenes, which one assumes don't require any explanation. This is another kind of wacky effort from Mastorakis, and fans of the "Greek tycoon" (to borrow a phrase of art from the insert booklet as well as Mastorakis' own filmography) will probably get a kick out it. Technical merits are generally solid, and as usual with an Arrow release, the supplementary package is very enjoyable, for those who are considering a purchase.