“The Girl With the Hungry Eyes” by Fritz Leiber (1949)
“She lifted my hand off her as if it were a damp rag.”
Lots of stuff about eyes and the obsession with the superficial today. Leiber’s story focuses on the obsession with seeing and being seen, and what it costs the viewer to appeal to the subject.
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“Ill Bred” by Charles Burns (1985)
“I realized her muscles were getting larger and more defined.”
The story seems to go full tilt into men’s panic about gender and sexuality norms until it pivots into a Twilight Zoneish wink at the audience as the plot resolves to an acceptable state for the normies. Pretty gnarly body horror stuff.
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Eyes Without a Face dir. Georges Franju (1960)
“I wish I were blind… or dead.”
Whoa okay, so Almodóvar just lifted from this pretty liberally. But I suppose they’re all indebted to Shelley and perhaps Wells. And you know, I’m starting to feel full up on mad scientist stories.