tntquality This has a spoiler for the end of the film...this is written for the fans of the movie who want to know the last part that was cut. If you have NOT seen this movie, please stop reading and watch this. It is up on YouTube in the right ratio 1:85 in five parts. The full length versions are zoomed in. Or better yet, buy it! I saw this movie in the movie theater when I was ten and it really haunted me. When I was able to rent it (on 16mm film, when you could rent a movie for about $25 for the weekend), it was the same version. BUT--on TV, and in later rental prints (I rented it in the late 70's/80's to run at college), the ending was different. And here it is: After the preacher says to PLUCK THEM OUT, Ray Milland bends over to do this and then he picks his head up, when you see the black holes where his eyes were. Then he SCREAMS "I CAN STILL SEE....I CAN STILL SEE!" and then it cuts to black. Well, in all these later versions (including the rental 16mm prints), you can CLEARLY SEE the CUT where a SPLICE is made to remove this last sentence. It's right where he lifts his head and you see the holes and it freezes...and cuts to black... that's where that last sentence was cut...the most incredibly chilling line of all!

RogerTheMovieManiac88 This truly is a cracking little sci-fi/horror thriller from American International and Roger Corman. In one of his finest late career performances, Ray Milland stars as the experimenting Dr. Xavier who comes up with an eye-drop fluid that allows him to see beyond the normal spectrum. Following the accidental death of a colleague, things get out of hand and Xavier is forced to go on the run. At this juncture, the picture perhaps gets even more interesting as the nature of what the doctor can increasingly perceive through his afflicted eyes is incorporated into a swirling and intriguingly developed background locale. He hides out at a carnival, where he becomes an attraction of sorts. Don Rickles, as his shady boss, turns in a sleazily memorable supporting performance and the depiction of the bustling on-site activity that goes on at carnival sites is well-realised.Later, on the run from a casino, Xavier loses the dark glasses that protect his eyes somewhat. As he struggles desperately to evade the police, the unbearable glare of the desert sunlight serves to heighten his strange and distorted visions. Milland's contorted movements and sense of straining despair and helplessness is really quite something to observe. The film's finale in the Evangelicals' tent proves supremely chilling yet also quite plaintive and deeply moving as the pioneering and now plagued Dr. Xavier reveals the extent of his troubling and harrowing visions.Shot in three weeks on a paper-thin budget of $300,000, this truly is a cheapie gem and undoubtedly one of Corman's finest achievements as a director. The haunting visuals and art direction are certainly dated yet retain a remarkable ability to convey what Xavier sees in front of him. There is fine support from a number of veteran character actors and Diana Van der Vlis is a particularly pleasant presence as a female colleague who tries to help Xavier. Milland is centre stage though and he is terrific and deeply compelling in creating an unforgettably anguished and understandably flawed anti-hero. He appeared in some pretty ordinary fare later in life but this is a film and performance that he could justly have been proud of. It is a searing and deeply pained but very human performance of admirable restraint and eloquence. Indeed, it takes the film to another level.As an aside, it is interesting to note that this film was released as a double feature with Francis Ford Coppola's Irish-shot 'Dementia 13'. I haven't yet seen that one but it too sounds wonderfully intriguing!

TheRedDeath30 I am a giant fan of Roger Corman's directorial work and have seen most of his output. This movie really stands out from the rest of his 60s material as an unusual and, ultimately, excellent part of his filmography. Corman is best known as the king of the quick b-movie, a director capable of pumping out movie after movie, with small budgets and mostly unknowns casts. What has always separated him from nameless hordes of similar directors is the quality of the work. He started off with throw away fluff. Some of those, like BUCKET OF BLOOD, are worthy examples of the beginning of his creative genius, but there are just as many like THE LAST WOMAN ON EARTH that failed as well. He made his mark in horror history with the Gothic revival cycle that featured Vincent Price, a series of movies based on the work of Poe that included classics like MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH. In the middle of these movies, though, during a decade where Corman was releasing movie after movie that was absolutely drenched in Gothic atmosphere, Corman releases this sci-horror gem, a movie that seems ripped from OUTER LIMITS or TWILIGHT ZONE, and stands out, truly, as one of Corman's best.The plot involves a scientist who develops a serum that allows him x-ray vision. As he pushes his exploration further and further, Dr Xavier (did Stan Lee rip this off?), goes far beyond the medical implications, or silly stuff like viewing nubile, young naked ladies, eventually descending into madness as he views what may be the center of life itself, but only after taking our plot to a carnival sideshow and a natural use of his powers at Vegas. What is so great, to me, about this movie is the way that it takes a deeper path into exploring this "super power". This could have been a movie about a man who uses a power for heroic purposes, or a silly movie that scratches the mere surface of what it would mean to have x-ray vision, but Corman takes this far beyond that, to a dark heart and a real exploration of what a power like this could do to damage the psyche of a man.Ray Milland really excels here. The effects are often minimal and, by today's standards, not that great. There is not much action to drive the plot, so the weight of the movie comes down on two things mainly -- the quality of the script in its' exploration of this power and performance of the man at the center of it. Milland (who horror fans may know from THE UNINVITED), really carries this movie. He begins as a likable doctor with a sincere wish to develop something that will benefit mankind. Through a courtship that unfolds with a fellow doctor, we get to know the doctor as a man beyond the doctor, but as the movie progresses, the doctor digresses further and further into his condition and as it impacts his grip on sanity, Milland really does a great job in the final acts.It took me awhile to track this movie down. Being such a fan of Corman, I had always looked forward to it, but wasn't sure what to expect, being so different from the Poe/ Price movies, but I was certainly not let down. This is an excellent early example of the mingling of science fiction and horror that can create such disturbing results and Corman handles it deftly.

poe426 Roger Corman has opened more doors for more filmmakers than I can recall; here, he opens the doors of perception (metaphorically speaking). "I'm closing in on the gods," Xavier boasts early on in the movie. When a monkey given the "X" eyedrops dies (apparently of fright), X decides it's time to experiment on himself (of course). "It's like a splitting of the world," he marvels: "More light than I've ever seen..." There's a neat POV shot in which his eyes are BANDAGED while he looks at and talks to someone else. "I like the way you look," a young woman tells him... just before the party they're at becomes, for him, a peep show. When his x-ray vision becomes too acute to control, he says of one woman: "She appears a perfect, breathing dissection." It's a gruesome observation, but the fx of the time didn't really allow for a viewer's peek at same. The "X effect" throughout is relatively simple, visually (it looks like a 3D image does without the glasses), but the gold and, finally, black contact lenses ARE effective. Milland's performance here is as tight as in THE LOST WEEKEND. Kudos to Corman.