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August 08, 2010

Comments

Rob

Perhaps they'd lost their mojo by 1954. Suspense was still going strong for years after that.

I like the new Facebook photo for your site!

Michael Hoskin

Now I'm curious to see which the last 10 episodes are...

atoz

I thought "Eye of Evil" was excellent. It had sort of a pulpy 1930s "Weird Tales" vibe to it with a dose of Heart of Darkness thrown in. There are two lines of dialog that clue you in to the type of ambiguous story this is:

"A feeling...a mystic something that has been known to take hold of a man."

"Some questions are never answered. I suppose that's just as well."

You are left with the feeling that there is some sort of power operating in the jungle, but that it's human agents have a lot to do with some of the "mystical" things that happen. The line that divides the two is very much blurred.

SPOILERS

I had to listen to it twice to get a (partial) grip on what was going on. Basically, what I think is going on is this

A native man, Mumba, hopes a "civilized" white man will help lead his village away from their superstitions. His hopes are tied to a man named Campbell.

A native woman, Cheena, wants to maintain the village just as it is. She, or the mystical power near the village, corrupts Campbell. He sees nothing but evil around him, but still falls under the village's spell. He is blinded. Does he do it to himself? Does Cheena do it to him? It's never revealed. He ends up completely enthralled by the village.

Since Mumba's plan has gone awry, he recruits John Dehner's character. When they arrive at the village, they find that the people have been turned against them. They believe that Dehner's character has been afflicted by the "evil eye" and his very stare is deadly.

In the end, Mumba is killed in what appears to be a mystical way, but really wasn't. You then begin to think that all the magic stuff is just mumbo jumbo and that Campbell is simply mad. But the last line of dialog reveals that Dehner's character has been tempted and possibly tainted by something otherworldly.


I think you should give this one another listen and view it as a power struggle between superstition (Cheena) and reason (Mumba) with two hapless Englishmen caught in the middle. The dialog that seems random on the first listen makes a lot more sense the second time around.

p.s I have no idea how to spell any of the character's names in this story.

Bernard Duff

County Mayo is in Republic of Ireland NOT Northern Ireland.

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