 The Eye (2002) Mun (Angelica Lee) receives a cornea transplant and begins seeing dead people, because the donor ain't done with them corneas just yet. Yes, the story has been done before, but The Eye is tautly directed for maximum suspense, paying off in some horrifying sequences with a slew of soil-your-motherfuckin'-pants SCARY-ass images. Things run out of steam at the big "twist," though, almost as though the filmmakers hadn't thought about doing any more than an hour, then winged their way through a bunch of dubious padding just to reach feature-length. While 80% of the movie is shot exceedingly well, with countless cool shots and sharp cinematography, the last third feels curiously after-the-fact – some scenes notably shot on what looks like cable-access video equipment. The contrast is jarring, and gives the impression that at some point, they had blown all their money on the scary shit and had to scrape the interstitial plot-development scenes together on no budget. As a result, despite accomplishing the rare feat of actually terrorizing me, The Eye left me with a mostly quizzical feeling. I can't think of another film that vacillates so extremely between overachieving greatness and complete crap. Some scenes are so cheesy they look like someone mistakenly cut away to a Chinese soap opera while editing the film. Inexplicably, what starts great misfires badly by the end. Still, it's one to see. It may well even give me recurring nightmares for years to come. But the uneven tone has a collapsing effect, and disappointment is the overall outcome … hm, quite like my increasingly scarce erections.
Review by Farting Dracula |