The Dead Have Eyes

What beautiful blue eyes! And just look at those pearly white teeth!... not too closely, though.

Guybrush: How can you see without eyeballs?
Murray: How can you walk around without a brain? Some things no one can answer.

— The Curse of Monkey Island

The Undead are already frightening enough, but they manage to go the extra mile by always, always being able to find their victims... because the dead have eyes. Even when they don't have eyes. Even when they shouldn't have eyes.

This manifests in different ways in different media. Decades old zombies fresh out of their graves will have gorgeous (or more likely horrifying) functional eyes despite the rest of their body being a decayed mess. On the other extreme, lacking sensory organs is no impediment for animated skeletons, who will be able to see and hear humans as if they still had those fleshy bits. At times, they will have Glowing Eyelights of Undeath in their eyesockets.

Think about it. A newly risen zombie, magically animated skeleton or mummy should be no more able to see victims than a bat... okay, bad example. There is a good reason behind this though: who would be afraid of a blind and deaf zombie? Then again, there are plenty of other problems with the undead bio... UnBiology, anyone?

Interestingly, the undead may even develop Super-Senses in the form of superior smell, hearing, or even "living radar". The skeleton/zombie with still-intact eyes is probably a modern trope. Historically, this may have to do with the Special Effects and makeup needed for eyeless sockets being difficult or impractical to use, since it would potentially blind the actor and remove some of their ability to emote.^note  (well, emoting that they don't emote, anyway) As modern horror movies and CGI have blurred the line between rotting zombie and skeleton with bits of flesh and organs still hanging on, for increased Squick factor, there are now those that toe the line between "recently deceased zombies (with functioning eyes)" and "older stop motion polished skeletons (without)".

See also Eyes Are Unbreakable. Compare Perpetual-Motion Monster, where the undead don't need food to "live."

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In Bleach, Barragan Luisenbarn's Resurrecciòn is a plain skeleton- no eyes (glowing or real) what so ever (although "plain" isn't exactly the right word, taking into account the cool clothes he gets by transforming). Despite this, he's perfectly able to see, not to mention talk, hear, etc. This was also the case back before he became an Arrancar and gained human fleshy bits, his Vasto Lorde form being the same cool-clad skeleton, yet still having all five senses and still vulnerable to Aizen's zanpakuto.
• The Highschool of the Dead zombies are completely blind and in fact won't know you're right next to them as long as you stay completely silent. They hunt via sound only.
• One Piece:
  • Brook is a living skeleton: he has/had the power to come back to life once, but only managed it after having decayed into a skeleton; thus he is physically (shape, mass) "just bones" but at the same time biologically fully human; long story short, he can see without eyes (and eat/poop without a GI tract, etc.), a fact he constantly jokes about.
  • The zombies from Thriller Bark are very much undead, but have eyes nonetheless.
• Averted in Soul Eater with Sid. He has no eyes (or lips), but his eye sockets move to help show his expressions.

Comedy

• One of Jeff Dunham's characters, Achmed the Dead Terrorist, has red eyes (and eyebrows, and a goatee), even after being reduced to a skeleton.

Comic Books

• Judge Dredd: In the story where the other three Dark Judges revive Judge Death by using the corpse of some unlucky citizen as his new vessel, there's a panel showing Death's eyes flickering open before he dons his helmet. Same deal in The Torture Garden after part of his helmet gets blown off, showing a fleshy, bloodshot eye underneath.

Films — Animation

• The Nightmare Before Christmas: Jack Skellington can see and hear just fine without eyes and ears. In the commentary, Tim Burton mentions that Disney wanted him to add eyes for more expression, but luckily, Jack's eyesockets were expressive enough to not need them.
• All of the skeletons in Coco have eyes in their skulls. One visual gag has Héctor's eyes roll out of their sockets and into his mouth.

Films — Live-Action

• Tombs of the Blind Dead: Subversion. The zombies are undead Knights Templar, whose eyes were pecked out by crows after they were accused of heresy by the church. They hunt you by sound alone.
• In Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, the undead pirates are decaying skeletons except for their eyes. Though since Jack turns into a similarly decayed skeleton within minutes of picking up a cursed coin, this is probably just a reflection of the curse. One could even theorize that since the undead pirates still possess their souls trapped within their rotting shells, of course they still have eyes.
• The movie poster for Evil Dead 2, as shown here.◊
• Army of Darkness: Bad Ash gets his head set on fire and loses pretty much all the flesh off of it, but keeps his eyes thoroughly intact.
• The poster for BrainDead.
• Even the most thoroughly decayed zombies from Romero's later zombie films (Day of the Dead (1985) and Land of the Dead) have totally intact eyes.
• In Zombi 2, the recently undead walk around in a sleepy haze with their eyes closed at all times. Whether or not they have eyes is unclear. The oldest zombies seen, however, seem to be totally without eyes; the ancient conquistador zombie has writhing worms coming from a mostly decayed eye socket.
• Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror: Though most of the zombies are eyeless, there're a few that have one◊ or both◊ eyes.
• Averted in The Mummy (1999), the eponymous mummy has to borrow eyes. Unfortunately for him, he borrows them from the first person he comes across, who happened to be someone who can barely see. Their myopia somehow doesn't affect him, aside from making him mistake the heroine for his long-dead lover. On the other hand, the various minions he summons don't seem to be bothered by their lack of eyes.
• Having rotted practically to a skeleton, Jack in An American Werewolf in London still retains his eyes.
• Memorably, if a bit primitively, averted in the 1972 Amicus Productions film version of Tales from the Crypt with Peter Cushing's character.
• Despite spending time rotting in a grave, Jason in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives has one functional eye ready for an Eye Awaken scene when revived.
• In Dawn of the Mummy, the mummy and its zombie followers have normal eyes upon awakening in the present day (of the eighties).

Literature

• In Day By Day Armageddon by J.L. Bourne, zombies mostly track humans down by loud noises.
• Zombies in Diario de un Zombi.
• Discworld:
  • Death is a skeleton without eyes, merely with two blue points of light in his eye sockets. Probably because Death is not supposed to be a horrible monster, but a main character. Much of the cover art by Josh Kirby (falsely) depicts him with normal eyeballs, though.
  • Played with in Pyramids. When the King first returns to life, as a mummy, he is quite blind until he stumbles around and finds the one jar with his eyes. Then, he gently picks them up. Since he died very recently, this is reasonable. But, when ALL of the many past Pharohs come to life, this trope is played straight. After all, the Kingdom has been around for 7,000 years.
• Lampshaded in Skulduggery Pleasant. The titular character is a skeleton who can not only see without having eyes but can also hear, speak, think, etc. without the necessary organs. When questioned about this, his answer is essentially A Wizard Did It.
• In Zak's Past Experience Nightmares about his dead parents in Galaxy of Fear: City of the Dead, this is averted; his parents have empty eye sockets, though they are otherwise relatively intact. Played straight in the holographic cover for the Limited Collector's Edition; one view shows a skeleton lying back on grass with the tatters of some kind of jacket over its bones, while the other view has it starting to sit up, jaws open, worm things twining among its bones and coming out one eye socket, while the other socket bears a glaring eye. There are no skeleton zombies within the pages.

Live-Action TV

• Anyone who has seen Tales from the Crypt can never forget the Crypt Keeper's beautiful blue eyes... and spleen, and liver, and collection of hearts.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • The 3.5 supplement Libris Mortis stated that skeletons and other undead without normal visual sensory organs have "Lifesense". That is they can see as if living creatures gave off light in a 20 foot radius that illuminates the environment for them and everything else is total darkness.
  • Demiliches don't have eyes per se but instead, two large red jewels that work just as well.
  • The 1st edition adventure L1 The Secret of Bone Hill had two undead skeletons with eyes: the skelter and the remains of a high level magic user.

Video Games

• World of Warcraft:
  • Despite lack of functional organs, undead tend to have either this kind of vision or Glowing Eyelights of Undeath. Even the skeletons are somehow able to see you despite that they have no eyes. Presumably it's magic.
  • One of the options for playable undead (and NPCs sharing the same models), is an X-shaped leather strap bound to their face, which on female models covers the eyes. They can still apparently see.
  • Death Knights keep their eyes. Then again, they are very well preserved, skin discoloration being the only sign of rot. Their eye color changes from whatever it was in life to pale blue, or for a handful of NPC death knights, purple.
• The skeletons in Dungeon Keeper 2 have one eye. They can take it out and use it to see round corners in one cutscene.
• Sir Daniel Fortesque, the player character of Medievil, is a literal half-example: Despite being dead for a century and having lost all the skin and muscle on his head (plus his jaw), he still has one good eye left in his socket. His other eye, however, is missing because he was killed by getting an arrow through it. If you look in the opening cutscene, before the magic resurrection spell was cast his eyesockets are empty. The spell restored his "intact" eye, and when he finally returns to his rest the eye shrinks away to nothing.
• Lampshade Hanging in The Curse of Monkey Island. Guybrush asks Murray, a talking skull, how he can see without eyeballs. Murray snaps back "How can YOU walk around without a brain?" but then admits that there's some things no one can answer.
• In Planescape: Torment, Morte is physically no more than a speaking, floating skull, but his eyes appear still perfectly functional. He can even roll them despite not having any musculature. Morte explains that this is because he's not really a skull, but a Mimir: A man-made construct (like a golem, but sentient) designed to look like a skull, but with eyes included. This turns out to be a lie, however, and none of his fellow skulls in the pillar have eyes.
• Oshare Bones of the Puyo Puyo series has one intact eye. His other eye seems to have rotted away and instead is a glowing eyelight of undeath.
• Gruntilda in Banjo-Tooie spent two years under a giant boulder, arising as a skeleton, and aside from popping out now and again, her eyes are fine. Played with again in Nuts & Bolts, her skull is cracked and bleached after 8 years of hopping back to Spiral Mountain, but her one good eye is perfectly fine and dandy.
• Yokai Hunter Shintaro has a Gashadokuro boss who, despite being a giant pile of sentient bones, still have it's left eye intact. Which it uses to shoot Eye Beams.
• The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: When Ganondorf's mummified body is first seen, it doesn't have eyeballs in its sockets. But then the seal holding Ganondorf in place is undone, his head creakily rotates to face Link and Zelda, and two black, orange-irised eyes zap into existence.

Webcomics

• The Order of the Stick:
  • The lich and necromancer Xykon has Glowing Eyelights of Undeath and Expressive Eyesockets, which taken together tend to resemble photo-negative eyeballs.
  • Undead Super-Senses also come up at one point, in the form of a racial bonus to listen to checks (IE supernaturally excellent hearing).
• Sluggy Freelance: The zombies have human intelligence and can pass for humans... under medium/heavy zombie makeup. One even mentions they need to eat the tissue they want to repair/maintain for it to stay "healthy". So most zombies who only eat muscle go blind and deaf (and very dumb) after the first few years.
• Justified in Unsounded with Duane: his corpse decomposed as usual despite his soul still walking it around, but he has realistic magical prostheses made of glass and gemstones. His original eyes were stabbed out before he died, anyway.

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