The Eyes Have It, or so it seems.
The lights dim and the character is thrown into deep shadow (or sometimes even total darkness)—except, for some reason, for a mysterious rectangle highlighting the character's eyes. Sometimes this is used to indicate intense concentration, sometimes it's used to show the character's powerful hypnotic abilities. And sometimes it's just to tell the audience, "This next part is supposed to be creepy!"
Almost never combined with Glowing Eyes of Doom. A form of Hollywood Darkness, and a subtrope of Chiaroscuro.
Not to be confused with By the Lights of Their Eyes.
Examples
open/close all folders
Anime and Manga
- Used twice in the OVA of Angel Densetsu, when the sunlight reflects from Takahise's knife into Kitano's eyes.
Comic Books
- P'Gell was once drawn this way in The Spirit.
Films — Live-Action
- The likely Trope Maker is the 1922 film Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler, which features the eponymous character (a hypnotist/psychiatrist/master-criminal) in several of these sorts of shots.
- As seen in the picture above, in the 1931 adaptation of Dracula, Bela Lugosi was given this close up with this effect.
- This kind of shot is used in almost every movie that Lugosi starred in.
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets has this on Lucius Malfoy near the very end of the film.
- Gomez and Morticia Addams display this for comic effect in the film adaptations of The Addams Family. Likely as an homage.
- Le Chiffre, played by none other than Orson Welles in Casino Royale (1967).
- Rainer Werner Fassbinder used this effect in his mostly orange-lit 1982 film adaptation of Genet'sQuerelle de Brest, where actors' eyes often get a rectangular blue spotlight.
- This happens every time Lamont Cranston uses his mental powers on someone in the 1994 movie version of The Shadow with Alec Baldwin.
- The slits in the window blinds at the police station create this effect on Christine Collins' face, in order to see the emotion in her eyes (and quite possibly take attention away from her lips) in the 2008 film Changeling.
- The 2008 film The Haunting in Connecticut, did this to the kid in the dumbwaiter.
- True Lies: Harry eyes are the only thing lit during the hotel scene. At the very end the lighting is adjusted so that Helen's eyes are highlighted like this when she gets the "Boris and Doris" phone call.
- Buffords Beach Bunnies has the Incredible Foreskin and his hypnotic abilities.
- Harold Oxley has a beam of light appear around his eyes when the Soviets have Indy stare into the Crystal Skull in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
- Light encompasses Jack Slater's eyes right before he flashes back to his son's death in Last Action Hero.
- In Highlander the camera zooms across Madison Square Garden, over the heads of the crowd, until finally settling onto MacLeod's eyes, which are lit in this fashion.
- In The Blues Brothers, the eyes of Henry Gibson's Neo-Nazi leader are lit like this while he's standing in front of Wrigley Field declaring war on Jake and Elwood.
- The movie version of Sin City does this, though it's not really for "spooky" reasons, but as a way of reproducing the original comic's visual look of having a character only be visible as a silhouette with only their eyes really visible.
- 300 does something similar with the Persian ambassador, until the last thing we see of him are his eyes.
- Happens to Paul McGann's character in Alien³ at one point, probably for spookiness. Hilarious in Hindsight given the Doctor Who TV Movie example four years later (see Live Action TV examples.)
- In Citizen Kane, Kane's eyes are lit at the opera house during Susan's disastrous debut. It shows his monomania and disconnection from the audience reaction.
- In the two The Addams Family films, Angelica Huston's Morticia is very frequently lit like this, seemingly just for Rule of Cool.
- Also Gomez, briefly, when he sees Fester again for the first time in years.
- In Cinderella, when Lady Tremaine figures out that Cinderella was the mystery girl at the ball, there is a closeup of her face as the screen darkens while her squinting eyes remain lit.
Literature
- Inverted in The Mysterious Mr. Quin, where the titular Mr. Quin is always introduced with the descriptor of a bar of shadow over his eyes, giving the impression of a Harlequin mask. It's very, very heavily implied he isn't quite human.
Live Action TV
- Happens surprisingly often to Captain Kirk in Star Trek.
- In the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie, this effect happened to the Doctor just after his regeneration scene.
- Power Rangers RPM uses this effect a lot to show the Rangers talking inside their helmets when they don't want to just use a Go-onger scene with them talking.
- In Supernatural, the Yellow-Eyed Demon who we later find out is named Azazel, gets a few shots like this, highlighting his - wait for it - yellow eyes.
- This appears again in Supernatural in "Folsom Prison Blues" (S02, Ep19), when the eyes of Dean, a prisoner, and a ghost are lit through light coming from a slot in the cell door.
- Also, the Dracula in "Monster Movie" (S04, E05) has this beam of light around his eyes, in a homage to Bela Lugosi (the episode is filmed In the Style of a 1930's horror film).
- Used extensively with "the Captain" on How I Met Your Mother
- Played with in Blake's 7 where a rectangular theatre screen is used instead. In "Voice From The Past", rebel conspirators arrive at an auditorium only to find it empty of their supporters. Then Supreme Commander Servalan appears on the theater screen to inform them that the Federation has known about their plot the whole time. As she speaks, Servalan's image is reduced from a Close Up On Head to an Eyed Screen to a single eye.
- Forever Knight often uses this to highlight the vampires' eyes when "vamped out."
Music Videos
- In the music video for Shakira's "Objection (Tango)", there is a sequence where Shakira is in the car looking for her wayward lover. Her eyes are illuminated by the reflection from her rear-view mirror.
- Done several times in Siouxsie and the Banshees' "Peek-a-Boo".
Video Games
- In the intro cutscene of BloodRayne 2, Rayne appears eyes-first in the backseat of a car.
- Chrono Cross gives the player a fine balance between blatant and ambiguous in cutscene transitioning the first act of the game into the second, when Big Bad - Lynx uses the MacGuffin on protagonist, Serge, and after an initial apparent headache, Serge stops thrashing and seemingly peacefully arises, whatever whammy involved clearly passed... except right before the a screenplay ends, Serges’ eye expression changes rapidly quickly accenting his unchanged smile from peaceful to sinister. First time through it is highly uncertain what has just happened, but clearly something has happened. When the player regains control and Lynx starts responding to controls instead of “Serge”, it is horrifically apparent what has just happened.
Web Comics
- Gunnerkrigg Court: The last panel here.
- The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!: Galatea here, just as she Takes A Level In Bad Ass.
Western Animation
- Spoofed in Moonbeam City with Da Chief of police Pizzazz Miller, who gets shaded like she's watching from behind Venetian blinds everytime she gets particularly intense. This turns out to be a family trait, as all her sisters get similar shading during standoffs.
