The Eye (2002)

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The acting in this movie is really good.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Blistering performances.

Since it's almost Halloween, I thought I would write a review on my favorite horror movie ever. I love scary movies, but it's so hard to find any good ones. This movie isn't bloody or gory. There isn't a masked murderer running around, killing everyone. But The Eye is the most frightening movie I have ever seen. It's a psychological type of horror movie. That's what I love about it. No matter how many times I've seen it, I still get freaked out. Please, if you haven't seen this yet, watch it. You can easily find the dubbed version. (VUDU has it). Do not opt for the newer American version with Jessica Alba. It doesn't even compare.

Let's put aside the fact that this film has some creepy moments but zero actual scares. Sorry, I jumped all throughout The Grudge and I knew while I was jumping that it was a terrible film. This didn't scare me. Noroi? Crapped my pants. This? I was laughing two thirds of the way through. Why?Because I just might nominate this film for most contrived ending of all time. Even disregarding the sheer amount of plot devices this film borrowed (Angel Heart and Jacob's Ladder are all over this film), the last third was absolutely dumbfounding. My jaw was on the floor from the sheer melodrama of it all. I saw this film on lists with Ju-on, Ringu, and a few other notable J-scarers, but boy, if this scared you, Ringu will literally kill you. For the record, Ringu didn't scare me either. Not like the American remake did. But that's a whole other can of worms.The Eye suffers from a serious dollop of schmaltz. Romantic subplot? Check. Ridiculously cheery classical piano music? Check. A "things are back to normal and I've gone through a lot but learned even more and everything's fine now" ending? Check.And hey presto, to top the whole thing off, a story with more plot holes than a cemetery after a tornado. And these aren't plot holes that film enthusiasts (not buffs, that denotes some sort of effort) will only catch and not the average viewer. You'd have to be awfully close to blind yourself to not be asking yourself some serious questions at the end of this film. Like, "What'd they use to make those fire effects, MS Paint?" or "Was the test audience for this movie a bunch of old women that said something along the lines of 'You really oughta include a series of flashback shots interleaved with shots of the present so that viewers won't get confused as to the already-obvious story arc similarities'?"Not a good horror movie, not a good thriller. If you want to look at it as a film about a woman struggling post eye surgery that was actually insane the whole time, maybe that's a better film.

I have to admit I don't quite get the fixation with Asian horror movies. And "The Eye" embodies every single reason for me not being into such genre.The movie is slow, plodding and totally NOT scary.Not gore-scary, not psychological-scary, not weird-scary. Not even slightly-unsettling or disturbing.It's just another chapter of the "I see dead people who can't rest in peace" book, which by now has become tiresome and trite.The acting is okay, if you can go past the lack of expression of the actors (something I can't do). The plot is predictable and the ending, well, you can totally see it coming. Probably not exactly the way it happens, but still the outcome is awfully predictable.The Eye is polished and well executed. Too bad the plot and the whole feel of the movie are unimaginative and dull.

Of all bodily organs exploited by filmmakers, it's the eyes that come in for most punishment. It's easy to see why: not only are they wonderfully expressive, they're also vulnerable as hell, as Luis Bunuel ably demonstrated in an infamous sequence from Un Chien Andalou. Here, the Pang brothers, Danny and Oxide (Bangkok Dangerous), take the idea of an organ transplant patient who takes on the donor's characteristics and stoke the fear-factor up through a judicious mix of sight, sound, and horrendously creepy atmospherics.Lee Sin-Jie plays Mun, blind since the age of two, but now the happy owner of a pair of used corneas; until the ghastly visions of mortality come slithering into view. These include strange, black-clad figures leading the recent dead into the afterlife, levitating spirits (during a scene that may prevent you stepping into empty elevators ever again), and the disturbing fact that the face gazing back in the mirror isn't hers, but that of the donor - who, wouldn't you know it, was a tortured young woman with clairvoyant powers that drove her to suicide.Sporting much less a plot than a series of relentless, sensory-battering set pieces, each creepier than the last, The Eye's general effect - courtesy of Simon So's art direction and Oxide Pang's soundtrack - is akin to being strapped into an unstoppable, unsettling ghost train ride.Remade with Jessica Alba: "I see no audiences."