Released during the height (or rather, the depth) of the torture p*orn era, See No Evil wears its rust-coloured origins on its sleeve.
The braindead brainchild of Lionsgate – also responsible for the Saw movies – and WWE Films, we get an 80-styled prologue to give the killer a backstory, to later add meat to the “nurture” side of the “nature vs nurture” debate.
The viewer is then invited into the lives of a bunch of central casting miscreant juvenile delinquents on some kind of work detail in a derelict hotel. It’s a kind of get-out-of-jail free – or get that sentenced reduced at least – make work project overseen by two corrections officers. Because, who better to oversee unshackled, 20-something crooks in a giant hotel than two middle-aged COs?
This lodging, despite functional elevators, makes LA’s Cecil Hotel look like the Ritz-Carlton. To restore it to its former glory would require at least 100 Local 183 Members working around the clock, with HazMats. The best bang for your corrections buck for a dozen lazy burnouts should be roadside trash pick up, but we digress.
This is an unsafe job site, to say the least: a hulking menace is plucking off juvies and gouging out their peepers. And you thought See No Evil was metaphorical?
However, as cops in procedurals say, “nothing to see here folks, keep moving.”
The scene setting lifts its aesthetic straight from the Saw/Hostel movies. The cast of unknowns are unknown for a reason, the exceptions being Steven Vidler as one of the COs, and inmate Christina Vidal.
WWE star Kane cuts a menacing figure as the antagonist, but the director doesn’t really know how to convey the horror on screen. There are a few high quality kills and some decent practical effects, but let’s be real: Lucio Fulci is the master of eye-related frights.
For a better time, check out the exemplary Danish horror, Speak No Evil.
*1/2 (out of 5)
Really Awful Movies 