Well, it wasn't bad. Save for a few assembled-from-a-kit shocker moments, it was a decent horror flick. Good plot, good acting...well, from Jessica Alba anyway. Parker Posey's performance could have been better but the film was really just about Alba's character Sydney and Sydney's struggles; the other characters were little more than scenery.
The film opens with children throwing rocks at a house graffittied with "bruja." A prefunctory understanding of Latin languages helps with the interpretation, and if not, it is revealed later in the film (right about the time you've forgotten the opening scene). A woman inside the house is struggling desperately to escape something blurry off to the edge of the screen. Clumsily and frantically, she ties a slipknot in a cord and throws it over a pipe near the ceiling. As the blurry figure to the side lunges at the camera (in one of those aforementioned kit moments), she kicks the chair she is standing on out from beneath her feet.
Cut scene to a symphony rehearsal, Alba front center as the solo violinist. She leaves rehearsal for the hospital where she is scheduled to received corneal transplants. From there we watch weeks of painful recovery aided (or possibly hindered) by visions of shadowy creatures escorting blurry people away from Sydney; the first being her comatose roommate, Mrs. Hillman.
The Eye is an effective ghost story with little to no hokey animation and no contortionists on the payroll ála The Grudge, The Ring, Pulse and the like. The key element is a creature Sydney comes to call Shadowman and Shadowman is fashioned to look (albeit unintentionally, I am sure) a little like the cinematic interpretation of Dementors, but that doesn't detract too much from the story.
As with any ghost story, Sydney finds herself redeeming someone who was wronged in their own life; in this case the woman who donated the corneal transplant Sydney received (subsequently the "bruja" from the opening scene).
Overall, while I have not yet recommended a remake of an Asian horror film (or the originals thereof, for that matter) because of the shoddy animation tricks and contortionists that are meant to be scary but really just make me seasick, I will wholeheartedly recommend The Eye for anyone looking for a good time. If I enjoyed it, cinematic horror elitest that I am, I am sure those less selective will be in for a romp.
The Eye is an effective ghost story with little to no hokey animation and no contortionists on the payroll ála The Grudge, The Ring, Pulse and the like. The key element is a creature Sydney comes to call Shadowman and Shadowman is fashioned to look (albeit unintentionally, I am sure) a little like the cinematic interpretation of Dementors, but that doesn't detract too much from the story.
As with any ghost story, Sydney finds herself redeeming someone who was wronged in their own life; in this case the woman who donated the corneal transplant Sydney received (subsequently the "bruja" from the opening scene).
Overall, while I have not yet recommended a remake of an Asian horror film (or the originals thereof, for that matter) because of the shoddy animation tricks and contortionists that are meant to be scary but really just make me seasick, I will wholeheartedly recommend The Eye for anyone looking for a good time. If I enjoyed it, cinematic horror elitest that I am, I am sure those less selective will be in for a romp.
