AC/AL 2008 97m ENGLISH BN/V CAST: Jessica Alba, Alessandro Nivola, Parker Posey, Obba Babatundé, Rade Serbedzija, Fernanda Romero & Rachel Ticotin CREDITS: Directors: David Moreau/Xavier Palud; Screenwriter: Sebastian Gutierrez; based on The Eye, written by Jojo Hui & the Pang Bros.; Producers: Paula Wagner/Don Granger; Director of Photography: Jeffrey Jur; Production Designer: James Spencer; Editor: Patrick Lussier; Costume Designer: Michael Dennison; Music: Marco Beltrami THE SYNOPSIS Blind since the age of 5, lovely concert violinist Sydney Wells (Alba) is given a chance to regain her sight. A corneal transplant surgery is scheduled for her under the auspices of kindly surgeon Dr. Haskins (Babatundé) and at the behest of her older sister Helen (Posey). Hoping for a new life, Sydney acquiesces. Later on, the surgery is a success...but with her new corneas comes the terrible gift of seeing ghostly escorts and the departing souls of the recent dead. According to her hunky new eye specialist advisor, Dr. Paul Faulkner (Nivola), she’s just seeing ghost images while her brain becomes used to all of the visual stimuli. If he only knew... The weeks pass and Sydney’s visions become sharper and more horrifying. Begging for Paul’s help, they discover who the previous owner of the corneas was: a young Mexican girl named Ana Christina Martinez (Romero)--who hung herself because she was unable to save the workers of a local ceramic factory who had all burned to death in a fire. The kicker? She saw it all happen in prescient visions beforehand. Traveling to Mexico, Sydney and Paul reach out to Ana’s distraught mother Rosa (Ticotin)--who survived the fire at her job. Quite ill from it all, she helps Sydney “fill in the gaps” in an effort to free her daughter’s soul. The eyes that Sydney now possess hearken another tragedy that will occur very soon... THE CRITIQUE Well, here it is: another Asian-based remake. Another nubile young woman in danger. Another spectral Asian kid. Another opportunity to witness some spooky s#%@ go down... We’ve seen it all already (The Ring movies, The Grudge movies, Dark Water, Pulse, etc.). Blah blah blah blah blah... A surprise: THE EYE remake turns out to be a semi-decent horror flick! While assumedly-lumped into the J-Horror sub-genre, this one actually owes its roots to Hong Kong horror cinema as opposed to the Japanese pedigree. 2002’s The Eye was produced & directed by the slickly-monikered Pang Bros. (Danny & Oxide). Their version has to be one of the best Asian genre films around (with all due respect to the horror canons of Japan’s Tobe Hooper & Wes Craven: Takashi Miike & Hideo Nakata, respectively)--and here’s my rationale: The Eye was a creepfest that worked because of good old-fashioned scare tactics, realistic FX and a strong R-rating to boot. If you haven’t seen it as of yet, by all means...watch it before you see the remake. Eye dare you! Anyway, back to the remake--which was written by Sebastian Gutierrez (Gothika/Snakes On A Plane/Rise: Blood Hunter)--and headlined by the always-radiant Jessica Alba. Man, I love her! Ms. Alba imbues her role of a blind woman gifted/cursed with second sight with the right amount of innocence, compassion and determination. Her Sydney Wells character is the type that jaded viewers would root for bad things to happen to, but I can’t. Jessica’s way too fine! The other actors (Nivola, posey, etc.) are fine--if noting more than necessary expositional characters. The always lovely Rachel Ticotin (so cool in 1990’s Total Recall) makes a bit of a splash in a small-yet-pivotal role. As helmed by French co-directors David Moreau & Xavier Palud (the tag-team who scored some genre acclaim with the terrifying Them), THE EYE moves along at a good pace and even throws out a few genuine shocks along the way. Eye admit it, these boys know where to have a camera placed. Speaking of which, Eye’d throw some credit for the cold, shadowy, widescreen-lensing to veteran TV cinematographer Jeffrey Jur (My Big Fat Greek Wedding/Joy Ride/Dirty Dancing). Though his gel palette of cold blues & greens are standard--if requisite (for this sub-genre, anyway)--color hues, the proper uses of shadow and shifts in focus elevate this one above some of the other recent J-Horror remakes. Very nicely-done, eye say! The $12,000,000 movie was shot in Los Angeles, New Mexico (standing in for Mexico) and Vancouver, Canada. Other tech credits are solid; slick editing, modernistic production design/mise-en-scène and creepy score work quite nicely here. In fact, all of the other major artistic contributors have genre pedigree as well. Observe: Editor Patrick Lussier had cut hits like the Scream trilogy as well as writing/directing/cutting Dimension’s popular Dracula series (Dracula 2000/Dracula II: Ascension/Dracula III: Legacy). Production Designer James Spencer cut his teeth designing the sets of Poltergeist and the Gremlins movies. Finally, veteran American composer Marco Beltrami has scored movies like the Scream trilogy and aforementioned Dracula 2000 series (both he and Lussier are good chums with horror maven Wes Craven, by the way). Don’t look away just yet; Eye feel some cons coming! As technically-proficient and well-produced as THE EYE is, nothing can ultimately save it from the crippling PG-13 rating which undermines any serious horror aesthetic that the filmmakers have attempted (now Eye can only say this about the theatrically-released version; Eye am sure that an “Unrated” version shall be forthcoming on DVD--where true horror fans can only hope to see a stronger, more graphic version). Also, when are filmmakers who swim these precarious waters of genre cinema going to realize that good scares don’t always run in tandem with extremely LOUD sound effects? Some of the best (read: scariest) scenes in the original Eye were rather low-key affairs that frightened thanks to great camerawork, eerie lighting schemes and some awesome makeup jobs. Pang Bros., take a bow!! As it stands, THE EYE remake is an entertaining, though watered-down affair. As far as Asian-theme horror remakes are concerned, however, this one works better than most (unlike the lousy One Missed Call remake). THE BOTTOM LINE THE EYE remake turns out to be a decent time-filler and a slightly-better specimen of the J-Horror-esque remake culture. Having the always beautiful Jessica Alba as our protagonist quite easy on the eye...no pun intended. Solid production values and a few (though very few) real shocks make up for the limp PG-13 rating. Recommended with some cynicism, says Eye! grudgeseries.htmlpulse2006.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_filmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J-Horrorhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filmmaking#Productionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_effecthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPAAhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenplayhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_directorhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pace_%28speed%29http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movie_camerahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widescreenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinematographyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Televisionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinematographerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_gelhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_focushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_budgetinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filming_locationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_editinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mise_en_sc%C3%A8nehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_scorehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_editing#Film_editorhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenwritinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_editinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production_designerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Association_of_America_film_rating_systemhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvdhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_effecthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scene_%28film%29onemissedcall2008.htmlshapeimage_2_link_0shapeimage_2_link_1shapeimage_2_link_2shapeimage_2_link_3shapeimage_2_link_4shapeimage_2_link_5shapeimage_2_link_6shapeimage_2_link_7shapeimage_2_link_8shapeimage_2_link_9shapeimage_2_link_10shapeimage_2_link_11shapeimage_2_link_12shapeimage_2_link_13shapeimage_2_link_14shapeimage_2_link_15shapeimage_2_link_16shapeimage_2_link_17shapeimage_2_link_18shapeimage_2_link_19shapeimage_2_link_20shapeimage_2_link_21shapeimage_2_link_22shapeimage_2_link_23shapeimage_2_link_24shapeimage_2_link_25shapeimage_2_link_26shapeimage_2_link_27shapeimage_2_link_28shapeimage_2_link_29shapeimage_2_link_30shapeimage_2_link_31