Shutterfly Films

The Pale Man, perhaps one of the most disturbing monsters created for film, at first appears to have no eyes.  In this eyeless state, he is the blind guardian of the sumptuous, but forbidden, feast laid out in his Underground banquet hall.  Though he is shown through the paintings to be a fearsome and horrifying monster who eats the multitude of children he catches with his gastronomic temptation, his stillness and his apparent lack of sight render him seemingly impotent.  It is not until Ofelia gives in and eats some grapes in the classic blunder of both true fairy tales and the Greek myth of Persephone that he comes to life.  He lurches into motion in the background as Ofelia is obliviously savoring the grapes in the foreground.  Then, in a gruesome moment, he picks up the orbs on the plate in front of him and inserts them into the holes in the palms of his hands, revealing them to be his eyes; he is not as blind as previously thought.  This action, combining the exposing sense of sight with the active force of hands, is where his might lies.  He is not a fast or gainly creature; he may chase his prey, but is easily outrun.  It is, however, impossible to hide from him and as there is no exit from the hall, he is guaranteed to win.
A possible source of inspiration for this imagery is the hamsa (Arabic) or chamesh (Hebrew) hand of Islam and Israeli folklore.  Hamsas frequently include an open eye in the center of the palm and are amulets for protection and warding off the evil eye.  They symbolize the protective hand of the Creator, or God.  The similarity of the hamsa to the hand-eyes of the Pale Man is a grotesque inversion of such a protective symbol, turning it into the power a frightening, destructive horror of a beast.  The Pale Man’s antithetical hamsas becomes the evil eye the charm is supposed to vanquish.