Vermilion Eyes

Directed by Nathan Schiff

With John Smihula, Arlene Burns, Barbara Balmer and Hope Sender

Obsessed with sex and death, a man is haunted by visions of beautiful women and brutal violence. He begins an odyssey into a world which, in his mind, transforms into an array of sexual fantasies and images of horrible accidents, suicide and murder. Like a bird of prey, he seeks out fatal automobile crashes and an assortment of other tragedies, which he records on film with a movie camera to view repeatedly, over and over. His dreams are a twisted amalgam of violent images juxtaposed with the tenderness of lovemaking. Overwhelmed by such fantasies, he soon becomes unable to distinguish reality from fantasy. He seeks to rid himself of these disturbing thoughts through love and by understanding the true nature of man. Instead, his emotional state falters, becoming more attuned with the notion of self-destruction. Morality becomes only a literary flourish, and dreams, now prophetic nightmares, the harbingers of complete and utter annihilation.