DVD
REVIEW: THE EYE

06/01/08

Following the recent trend
in Hollywood of remaking Asian horror, “The Eye” is a
mediocre remake of “Gin-Gwai”” a Pang Brothers 2002 Hong
Kong horror hit. In the same vein as The Grudge, The Ring,
One Missed Call, and Dark Water, Hollywood took a creepy and
truly scary film, gave it a U.S. spin, and stripped it of
the truly creative suspenseful elements it had and added
some uninspired special effects and cheap screams just to
make some quick millions off someone else’s original idea.
The film, just like the original, is about a sweet and
talented violinist, Sydney, who has been blind since a
childhood accident robbed her of her sight. She is
comfortable and secure in her dark world, until a corneal
implant surgery thrusts her suddenly into a world full of
light and new sights, and she must relearn how to live in
this new world where her sight is the sense she must now
rely on and trust. Unfortunately, she sees things that no
one else can see, and her eyes introduce her to a world of
horror of both dead and undead things, and fire consumes
most of her visions which begin to push her to the brink of
madness not knowing if she actually is seeing ghosts or just
losing her mind. Suddenly the most important thing in her
life becomes finding the donor of her corneas, and figuring
out who she was and what she wants so that she can put her,
and the visions, to rest.
Jessica Alba did an amazing job in the role of Sydney,
showing a sweet vulnerability and you can really feel her
horror and dismay at finding out that having her sight
restored has become a curse. She was also very believable as
the blind and talented character she portrayed. She was the
only redeeming factor in an otherwise unoriginal film. I saw
the original film and I couldn’t sleep for a week after, so
I watched this with more than a little wariness, expecting
again to be really scared out of my socks. But as I watched
more and more of the film and noticed the changes, I
realized that it was the subtlety of the original film that
instilled fear, and that the cheap effects that this film
used to try to get a scream could not replace that subtle
creepiness that the original possessed. I was very
disappointed with this version and would have expected
better, especially from Hollywood.
Review By Helen
helen@smartcine.com
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VIDEO:
16x9 Widescreen
(2.40:1)
AUDIO:
English 5.1
Dolby Digital EX
Spanish 2.0 Dolby Digital
Theatrevision (English Audio Descriptive Service)
Subtitles: English and Spanish
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Disc - 1
Deleted Scenes - Eight deleted scenes are shown with
the best of the lot being “Bloody Eyes Nightmare”,
“Congnitive Testing” and “Clinica”.
1. Bloody Hallway (0:39)
2. Sydney is Simon for the first time (2:16)
3. Bloody Eyes Nightmare (1:28)
4. Meet the Cheungs (1:15)
5. Screaming man in the recording booth (1:21)
6. Violin Shop (2:02)
7. Cognitive Testing (1:10)
8. Clinica (1:26)
Birth of the
Shadowman - Richard Redlefsen, the Special Makeup
Effects Artist, discusses how the shadowman effect was
created. (1:39)
Becoming Sydney - Jessica Alba and Executive
Producer Darren Miller discuss how Alba learned to play the
violin and act blind in preparation for the role of Sydney.
(4:48)
Shadow world: Seeing the dead - a nice
discussion on the topic of cellular memory the basic premise
behind the film. (8:31)
The Eye: An explosive finale - A discussion on
the making-of the film’s big finale. (6:08)
Disc - 2
Standard Definition Digital Copy of The Eye Feature
film.
RATING BREAK DOWN:
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