In the early 1980s my father had HBO via a C-band Satellite. One night I caught a few minutes of a movie, and it’s bugged me now for 30 years.

I have the impression that it was a horror movie, but it might have been just an intense moment of a thriller.

The scene that has stuck with me is that of a woman entering a bright white room, or perhaps just a white area of an otherwise dark room. There is a man there who is commanding the situation, he may have asked her to step forward, or come forward.

In this white space there is a statue or idol of some sort. I have the impression that the man in the scene was some manner of cult leader, under the idols power, or was just using the idol to further his own evil ends. The idol is much darker than the rest of the space and seemed to be the focus of the space. I think the idol was small, and it may have been just the head of a figure, or perhaps one of those shrunken heads.

The thing I remember most clearly is the man asking or ordering the woman to disrobe so the idol/statue/shrunken-head could “see” her. She responds with something like “but his eyes cannot see”.

There may have been some act of violence after this, but I have no clear memory of it.

I think it was a movie rather than a TV show, because I have the fleeting impression that the aforementioned woman was actually on screen in the nude, but again, I have no clear memory of it.

The dialog was in English as that was my only language as a child, though it could have been a dubbed film.

It was a color film, and not very high quality. I think I remember the colors being washed out and the picture being poor.

Now my only fear in posting this is that I’m hoping I didn’t just describe a scene from some hybrid horror/porn movie from the late 1970s. I do remember feeling as a child that if my parents knew I had been watching this movie I would have been in trouble. However, as an adult now, I really would like to know that movie or scene that spooked me.