3. Les Yeux Sans Visage (1960)
Dr Genessier identifies a body as his daughter Christiane. The real Christiane lives with her father in his clinic with lots of scary dogs. She was severely facially disfigured in a car accident and the body her father identified was a young woman upon whom he had experimented. Christiane floats about the place ethereally with a creepy white mask on to hide her disfigurement. Her deranged father is determined to perform a successful facial implant on to his daughter. He and the nurse capture young women in order to basically steal their faces. Their latest victim is Edna. They cut off her face and transplant it on to Christiane. Edna throws herself out of a window and it becomes obvious that the transplant is failing. The police have an idea that something is up and they investigate the goings on of the clinic. Christiane gets to the end of her tether and releases all the dogs and birds her father experiments on. The dogs go wild and kill her father. Christiane floats through the forest with a dove on her arm. Les Yeux sans Visage is a creepy but poetic horror film. It doesn't shy away from gore - showing graphic footage of a girl having her face cut off and I'm sure that back in 1960, that was very shocking. The film is desperately sad - the predicament of Christiane who is horribly disfigured and must live with this. As well, she has to live with her deranged, guilt stricken father who is always forcing surgery on her that is doomed to fail. And she knows that the skin is coming from innocent young women. It is no wonder that she cracks up and releases the hounds. The end sequence suggests she has come to terms with her fate - and the dove suggests peace of mind.