By Katie Potzick
“The Eye,” a remake of the Chinese horror film “Jian Gui,” is the story of Sydney Wells, played by Jessica Alba, a blind violinist, who undergoes corneal transplant surgery so that she can regain her vision. Just as Sydney begins to get used to having vision, she starts catching glimpses of strange shadowy images and frightening scenes.
When Sydney makes an attempt to explain these scary experiences to her family and friends, they start to doubt her sanity. Feeling helpless, in a last ditch effort to take back her life and explain her visions, she embarks on an adventure to learn more about the previous owner of her new eyes. The trip ends with unexpected results.
Bringing an Asian horror film to the States worked for “The Ring” and “The Grudge,” but in the case of “The Eye,” a lot of the plot elements that make for a good movie seem to have gotten lost in translation.
The Good:
The movie does a good job of helping the audience see what life is like for the blind. The premise of the movie, as previously stated, is interesting. There are some genuinely scary scenes; such as a fire engulfing a Chinese restaurant and a hanging body in an elevator. The special effects used to show Sydney’s hallucinatory visions are creepy and mesmerizing.
On memorable scene has Sydney in her bedroom and the walls keep flickering into scenes from her donor’s past.
Another plus is the satisfying ending, which unlike most horror movies ties together all the lose ends.
The Bad:
“The Eye” is a mixture of a lot of other horror movies without much in the way of originality. It combines the spectral vision from “The Sixth Sense,” creepy young Asian boy from “The Grudge,” and future visions from “The Butterfly Effect.”
The plot is confusing with visions being explained by “cellular memory,” which is the phenomenon where the eye transplant recipients hold the memories of their last owner. There are also cheap scares and some visions which were obviously added in for scare factor.
There is the usual added love story that only succeeds to distract from the already poor plot. The dialogue between Sydney and her leading man is wooden. Alba’s acting leaves much to be desired throughout the movie and she is often upstaged by the ghosts she sees.
If you really want to see “The Eye,” the clear choice is to bypass the remake and rent the original.
Overall, the film is predictable. “The Eye” is a horror movie with a blurry plot line that will leave you feeling out of focus.
