Movie Review: See No Evil

I finally made it to a theatre to see See No Evil. Unfortunately, this theatre was almost as dirty and decrepit as the old Blackwell Hotel in the film. The theatre smelled, and not with that wonderful smell of buttered popcorn, mind you, and I did have a chore finding a seat that did not look like it was used in one of Hostel's guest rooms. I hate sitting on stains of unknown origin (hey, what a catchy script title! Stains of Unknown Origin).

So much for that special movie-going experience. And ticket sales are down why? I was determined to not let my surroundings influence my viewing of the film. Much.

Perhaps it was my frame of mind, but it seems to me that "dirty" and "decrepit" in horror films are becoming, well, dirtier and more decrepit. When the police enter Jacob Goodnight's home, they enter your now typical "horror movie home for psycho, axe-wielder types": smoky, dark, and bloody marks splashed across the walls. A girl's screams force them to move in without backup, and this being a horror movie with an axe and hook-equipped — and really really big -- psycho, they might as well have carried their own body bags to save time. The scene is brutal, gory, and ends as to be expected.

Cut to a few years later, and we are briefly introduced to a group of so-old-it's-new-again-styled delinquents from the County Detention Center that would have made Sal Mineo and James Dean proud.

As we meet each tough-to-be-cool kid, a text description pops-up onscreen describing his or her crime against society, as if this were a video game and we are going to choose the character to play. Okay, I'll take the computer hacker delinquent for 500 life-points. I like computers. The computer hacker types usually last the longest in body-count films, too. Not sure why, though.

As each body bag, oh, sorry — delinquent — stepped on the bus, along with the police officer who had firsthand experience (really, no pun intended here if you see the film) with Mr. Goodnight, I imagined them in the order of elimination. He's going first, she's going second, etc., I am getting rather good at this sort of thing, but I must admit the director, Gregory Dark and writer Dan Madigan did manage to add a few twists that fooled me. They threw my count off. Damn.

Article Author: ILoz Zoc

Founder of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers (LOTT D), expiring writer of Zombos Closet of Horror Blog, and valet to Zombos, the noted B-movie horror actor (to his few remaining and decaying fans).

Visit ILoz Zoc's author page — ILoz Zoc's Blog