Blind Vision Reviews

Very nearly a hymn to voyeurism, BLIND VISION is an above-average thriller which stars Lenny Von Dohlen as William Dalton, a painfully shy man who from his menial position in the mailroom with buddy Tony David (Stony Jackson), is obsessed with unattainable co-worker Leanne Dunaway (Deborah Shelton). Living across the street from her, William spies on Leanne through a camera equipped with a telephoto lens. She is also being watched by Mr. X (Robert Vaughn), who, also watched by William, visits her several times, at one point beating her up. William's landlady Miss Taylor (Louise Fletcher) in turn is always watching William with an amorous eye. One night, soon after leaving her, Leanne's lover Gregg Howard (T. Sean Foley) is killed with a razor, and Sgt. Logan (Ned Beatty) starts watching all of them. The neatly convoluted plot by co-writers Winston Rickard and Shuki Levy (who also directed and co-edited) ultimately has William going over the edge into psycho territory and killing Mr. X (Leanne's estranged husband, who killed Gregg), but in a final showdown, Leanne, stirred by the purity of his love for her, steps in front of a bullet aimed at William and before dying confesses to Logan that she killed Mr. X, thus saving William. If the characters who populate BLIND VISION are fairly standard, they're made fresh and interesting via the uniformly strong performances and the writing. The central relationship, or lack of one, is nicely delineated by the gently intent Von Dohlen, whose shyness is close to paralysis, and the sexy Shelton, late of De Palma's BODY DOUBLE and Levy's real-life spouse. Levy, who directed last year's TWILIGHT BLUE, occasionally allows the pace to meander, which is lethal to a Hitchcockian ode like this, and surprisingly, for an unrated direct-to-video release, the violence and sex are fairly soft-pedaled. Despite the low budget, producer and co-editor Jonathon Braun has turned out a good-looking film, sharply photographed by Frank Byers. Shot in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1990. (Violence, profanity, nudity, sexual Situations.)