Upon going to see this movie, the first thought that popped into my head was that “The Eye” was going to be another poor remake of a great Japanese horror flick. The film stars Jessica Alba as Sydney, the blind violinist, who gets a revolutionary new surgical procedure that gives her new eyes so that she can see the world around her. With this new sight however, there are some major drawbacks. She’s constantly haunted by frightening images of death.
I began to think that this could potentially be good. I’m sure if you are honest with yourself you thought the movie “The Ring” was half decent the first time you watched it. Maybe this movie could have the potential to bring a genre back from the brink of fear, and with Alba in the lead role, I thought, that there may be some hope for this film after all. So I check into my seat and tried to watch this movie without too much bias against the Japanese horror remake.
The original movie was called “Jian Gui.” “The Eye” had the exact same plot and story, but for some reason the original movie, which I watched the day earlier by chance, was much more terrifying. The surgery she gets seems eerily parallel to the new laser eye surgery.
As soon as Syd gets the surgery she meets a nine-year-old cancer patient who tells her not to worry because the world is beautiful. Once she leaves the hospital she begins to start her recovery with learning how to see again. At first everything is blurry, but almost immediately she starts seeing the dead and their “escorts.”
Syd realizes that what she is seeing is not actually supposed to be there, so she sets off to try and find who the donor eyes came from, and why she continues to have these weird visions. Her journey leads her and Dr. Paul Faulkner, the doctor in charge of her recovery, down to Mexico where she finds out the true nature of what happened to the donor.
Once the film ended, I considered the general movie idea and thought that it was not too bad. Some of the themes were a little redundant but overall this was a pretty good movie. The acting was surprisingly well done and I never was bored. But the movie had the eerie feeling of M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Sixth Sense.” The only difference here was that instead of seeing just the dead, she could see them right before they died.
As for this being a remake of the Japanese film, “Jian Gui,” it held together pretty well. There was no time where I thought “None of this is making sense” as the little details of each scene were shown and left no plot holes.
But when you think of an American horror film, most times you will think of a hack and slash flick. Japanese horror films are more psychological in the fact that they will elude to a scary moment but, just as you think it’s going to happen, it leaves you hanging for a truly jump-out-and-scare-you moment. However, on the many occasions where something actually did occur, the theater was filled with screams of fear from the people around me.
In general I would recommend this movie to most anyone for the simple reason that right now, there are no other movies like this one. Sure, it has some recycled points in it, but what movie these days does not have recycled points?
In the end, with a rating scale of one to five, I would place this at about a three and a half.
Well directed, and well acted, this movie was pure entertainment and did an amazing job in the transition of Alba’s blindness into her world of sight once more.
Adam Korman is a fourth-year student majoring in professional studies. He can be reached at AK587939@wcupa.edu.