Eyes of Fire (Avery Crounse, 1983)
i enjoyed this one a lot! the priest who drags everyone into this awful situation is dumb as hell, and seeing him towards the end of the film, completely bedraggled with no idea what to do about any of the weird shit that’s happening is a delightful. the conceit of all the previous settlers getting sucked into a tree, with their faces sticking out of the trunk and roots, and emerging naked and covered in mud is very cool. the visual effects are mostly pretty good, with people simply fading in and out in a way that reminds me of season 3 of Twin Peaks, but it’s often marred with extremely eighties synth sounds or just weird reverby clangs that just seem cheesy, and also over-depends, for the more otherworldly scenes, on full-frame color filters that remind me of the things i was excited to figure out how to do when i got my first pirated copy of photoshop in my teens. i’m also not quite sure why the various monsters just straight up exploded when they got shot, but it was pretty funny to see.
3.5/5
n.b.: i originally rated this 3.5/5 on letterboxd and a few days later updated my rating to 4/5; i have not watched yet (but definitely intend to) the director's cut, with the original title of Crying Blue Sky, which has a more ambiguous ending.