At first, seeing an image of dropped leather glove and then of someone watching their bloody hands, I’m thinking O.J. documentary. Nope; not unless the filmmakers have cast a white, four-eyed dweeb as the hall-of-fame running back. As it turns out, the killer is Clive, a guy with an obsession for gloves who lives in an apartment with Clara, a mothering, affectionate young woman. Clara who feeds him and is clearly in deep denial, leaves him alone most of the time and encourages his scientific “experiments”. The first such “experiment” comes in broad daylight at the expense of a trampy looking babe in fishnets and cowboy boots. We soon learn that our knife-wielding friend collects human eyes as well as gloves. This is reasonable considering that the gloves don’t seem to talk to him. The hero of the film turns out to be Bobby, a long-haired sickly fellow who sells music boxes and cologne out of his living room. When one of Bobby’s friends is murdered by Clive, Bobby takes it upon himself to tackle the investigative trail.
I should start off by saying that Bobby, played by director Vince Risoli, looks like he is at deaths door. He is pale, his face looks drawn, and his hands tremble constantly. There is no reason offered in the plot for his condition other than the fact that he seems to know where to quickly and easily obtain cocaine for use as a bribe. In any case, I sincerely hope that Risoli isn’t hoping to finance some personal medical treatment with the proceeds from this production.
The film is vague and confusing from the get go, beginning with Clive. Ambiguity in a character is fine, but here we are left with only brief glimpses of personality. Sometimes he seems to limp. Sometimes he sounds like he’s speaking with some kind of accent. His hair inexplicably turns blonde. It’s as if Risoli is writing the character as he goes and nothing coherent really materializes. All other characters are just boring and lifeless. Only one or two minor parts are capably acted by the cast. A lot of screen time is wasted by characters silently walking around in front of the passive camera. Even the action scenes look listless and staged. The gore in the film is incidental. I don’t mind watching a guy kiss and suck severed eyeballs if it’s in a good film and I have some sympathy for someone, or any sort of curiosity about what’s going on. When the eyes begin to whisper to Clive, the audio quality makes it difficult to hear what they’re saying but frankly, it just doesn’t seem very important.
