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Seriously Surprised He Hasn't Ended Up Like That Photo Of The Truck Driver Where They're All Sun-wrinkled On One Side Of Their Face - Blog Posts

first-class-feral

10 months ago

brad dourif: shit's getting real when they pop the headlights

X-Files: the crown jewel shot of Brad leaning in through a sideways light source, both eyes gleaming impossibly, as though lit from within

While fawning over BD’s supernaturally gorgeous eyes, I had to pick just a few gifs to illustrate That Thing where directors highlight him from an off-angle so they seem to glow internally. You know something's about to go down when they bust out this trick.

Problem: The X-Files alone is chock-full of this effect, and there are a gajillion more from other media. So: a dedicated post!

Starting with the ole one-eye highlight — they usually pick the right one, which is a little lifted and turned (I'm calling it his cat-eye):

Tales from the Crypt: being shaken around by his brother after making several Very Bad calls

Death Machine: some close-up eeriness from our greasy hacker boy Jack Dante

Wildling: slowly peering up at you over his specs, through a tangle of eyebrows. The visual equivalent of the THX Deep Note

Hittin' em with that old-man eye in Death & Cremation

Fatal Beauty: some wide-eyed side eye. He appears to be "telling it like it is"

Sworn to Justice: heavy breathing and a defensive posture in his fancy little business outfit

Cue the lightning!!!

Charles Lee Ray, doing a occult, lightning flashing in his right eye

Urban Legend: ranting old damp man with a terrible warning that he can't seem to spill

Sometimes it makes an iridescent crescent shape. I know it's meant to be scary, but he's such a terribly pretty boy:

Istanbul: "You. Go out there and play." Such a little asshole

Graveyard Shift: some truly uncanny one-sided iris highlighting in a close-up, during his Vietnam rant

Hazing: just a slow zoom out from an older Dourif's eyeballs. A hint of moustache

Moonlighting: not scary, just a luckless priest in a layman's windowpane-striped shirt, confronting his future

Feral cat-eye in Fatal Beauty: a hunted look

Getting creative with some uplighting and a rare left eye (it's nice to see her getting some attention)...

Critters 4: Al Bert leans dramatically into some upward shafts of light

Brad in the 2024 Chucky TV show. One of the most intense examples, with bright white light shining onto him in a darkened room... still got it!

...And some more extreme angles. How does this even work?!

Mississippi Burning: in extremis, with Gene Hackman all up in his face and shakin' him, covered in shaving cream and regret, and where the hell is that light coming from, it's literally reverberating around in the lens somehow, how is that happening

It's just... captivating. I'm gonna go lie down now. (Think I actually stole all the gifs from @exdeputysonso this time. I'm basically a recycler for all their hard work and tbqh I'm fine with that)