31 Days of Horror - Day 1: My Little Eye
Welcome everyone to October and the first of 31 posts on horrror movies. I came up with a few ideas on what I should do as something special for Halloween and instead of doing my favourite horror/thriller movies or listing a few cult gems that no one has heard of I have decided instead to do combination of both with 1 post each day. Each post will either highlight a cool horror/thriller movie that I enjoy or else I will write about a horror/thriller movie that I have never seen until now. There will also be one exception where I talk a bit about one of my favourite TV series.
I want to thank Serena Whitney from Dread Central for giving me some suggestions of little known good horror movies. So far I’ve worked through 4 off of her list and I’ll be covering them. My intention was to originally write about all of them but I ended quitting Campfire Tales part of the way through just because if felt like a bad version of Twilight Zone or Creep Show so I’m dropping it for some other choice of horror that I will come up with mid month. If there is some little horror gem that you love then feel free to send me an email and perhaps I’ll do that one.
Okay, that is way more than enough preamble on to the first movie.
One of the movies that Serena suggested is a small low budget horror click called My Little Eye. My Little Eye stars Sean Cw Johnson as Matt (all around nice guy and jock), Kris Lemche as Rex (troubled rebel who is in it for the money), Stephen O’Reilly as Danny (quiet geeky loner), Laura Regan as Emma (repressed quiet girl who wants to be liked) and Jennifer Sky as Charlie (party girl who wants fame). The five of them are brought to a house in the middle of the woods where they have to stay for 6 months. If all of them stay they are awarded $1 million dollars. During the 6 months their entire lives will be put on the web like a version of the television show Big Brother.
Everything seems to go fine for the majority of the six months but right near the end everything starts to fall apart as external stresses come into play. It seems that someone has started to stalk the 5 contestants. Is it Emma’s childhood friend who has come back for revenge after she had humilated him. Is Matt really as good and nice as he seems or does he have some secret history. What is Danny working on in the basement? Is the stalker just part of the show perhaps even one of the 5 is trying to keep the others from winning their money or is there something else at play that is much darker than any of them can imagine.
My Little Eye is really two movies combined into one. The first three quarters plays out like a thriller and it is very compelling. There is a real sense of fear in not knowing what is going on and in the rising suspicions amongst the players. I was totally drawn into the character development and the relationships that were being formed. Unfortunately the last quarter turns into a fairly standard stalker story with a conclusion that was pretty obvious. I will definitely not say that it ruined the overall movie for me but it did lessen my enjoyment. I still recommend checking My Little Eye out if you get the chance.
As one final note about My Little Eye it is interesting to find out that it was originally a 4 hour movie that was set to go direct to DVD but after initial testing (and subsequent poor comments) it was cut back to 92 minutes and was released in theatres.
Be sure to check back tomorrow for Day 2 of the 31 Days of Horror.
Great review, I enjoyed My Little Eye quite a bit when I caught it a while ago. If I remember correctly it was a Midnight Madness film at TIFF a few years back.
Comment by Shannon the Movie Moxie — October 1, 2008 @ 11:10 am
I was really into the way MLE was handling everything and the overall atmosphere. If the movie had kept it up right until the end I would have loved it but when it jumped it really jumped and like I said it was too easy to see it all coming at that point.
Comment by John Allison — October 1, 2008 @ 11:27 am
I dig that Kris Lemche (Ginger Snaps, The Last Casino) has a solid role.
Evans went on to direct Trauma with Colin Firth and Snow Cake with Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman. I must admit that My Little Eye didn’t make me get up the energy to watch either of those other films.
Oh, and most clumsy set up for sex scene in a film. Ever.
Comment by kurt — October 1, 2008 @ 11:57 am
And as for the sex scene. They had been locked up in the house for 6 months with no sex so she was probably just horny.
Comment by John Allison — October 1, 2008 @ 12:58 pm
Comment by kurt — October 1, 2008 @ 1:12 pm
Comment by murph — October 1, 2008 @ 1:25 pm
Comment by Serena Whitney — October 1, 2008 @ 2:09 pm
Comment by Kurt Halfyard — October 1, 2008 @ 2:15 pm
Comment by Serena Whitney — October 1, 2008 @ 2:21 pm
But yes, I didn’t find it to be violent, the last half I found rather boring. It’s the pacing suspense thing. And because the director doesn’t give up the game until the final few minutes, any dialogue between the viewer and the director is nullified (unless you wanted to sit thru it again). If felt the opening half which was more conventional thriller/ghost story was more honest, when Laugier tries to shoehorn in some depth to things, it gets pretty unpalatable due to its own shallowness.
I’ve heard some people with some compelling allegorical explanations for the films intent and meaning, but I’m not buying it. I consider the creators of the film were far more intested in “Fuck Yea!” violence than in honestly communicating/dialoguing with deep themes. I felt the same way with Xavier Gens Frontier(s) which kinda-sorta tries to get allegorical and message-y but really, it doesn’t graft onto the film properly and just looks really ungangly.
I’ll give Martyrs this though, from a production design standpoint and the construction of the first half. It was pretty top shelf. As a movie, well, it sucked.
A L’Interior (aka Inside) was a much better movie-movie. Great pacing, solid integration of subject matter with construction, inverting the genre-tropes a bit and making the whole thing compulsively watchable. Yea, I liked that one.
Comment by Kurt Halfyard — October 1, 2008 @ 2:32 pm
Comment by Serena Whitney — October 1, 2008 @ 2:47 pm
(yes I’m alive)
Comment by Andrew James — October 1, 2008 @ 2:50 pm
1) The generic werewolf story that had nothing and I mean nothing to really add to the genre. About the only good thing about the story was the fact that it had the guy from Office Space in before he was in Office Space.
2) The story about the 12 year old girl was created by someone who wanted to push the wrong buttons. I do not think that I am a prude or anything and I like a lot of sick shit in movies but when a movie feels like they are putting a 12 year old girl in the shower and then showing her in a towel as a means to play with sexuality I have a bit of a problem with it. It just felt wrong and dirty. Now give me someone in their 20s or 30s or hell even old and I’m all for it but I felt that the second story just wanted to push that button and it was cheesy.
3) In the second story there is no reason why the stalker should know about the dog licking bit. That felt totally contrived and was only there because it provided a twist.
4) I didn’t even bother to get to the third story because I was bored by the end of the second one.
5) The whole concept of why they are there telling the stories with the twist is just plain overdone and generic. Now I will admit that I didn’t watch it but I read how it ends and it really just looks like another twist for twist sake.
Onto Martyrs….
I really enjoyed the first home invasion bit because it was also combined with the creature who was hunting the woman at the same time. I thought this was an interesting twist and I thought the violence while really brutal was not over the top silly.
I’m with you and Kurt on the second half. I know what the director was going for but I don’t think he was able to achieve it. After the first 5 minutes of torture I had tuned out. I didn’t tune out because I couldn’t stand it but because it was boring. I really did not get a sense of emotional stress out of it which is something it really needed. I was able to distance myself from it too much.
And yeah I also really get ticked at what everyone always says about Haneke and how he is telling you that you are evil or bad for wanting to watch horror movies. I personally believe that he wants us to simply be involved and to really think about what we are seeing. Why are things always done the same way. Why is it always the woman who is able to escape and fight off the bad guy. And most importantly to think about why we can take enjoyment from watching violence.
Come to think of it I think I can understand why I don’t like the second half of Martyrs based just on the director’s response to the Haneke question. He basically said “fuck Haneke” or at least that is what I remember it basically coming down to. I really don’t think he delved deep enough into the violence and the emotional impact and that is what he really should have done. Perhaps I’m wrong but I really think this is what Haneke wants from both his audience and also the people who make horror movies.
Comment by John Allison — October 1, 2008 @ 3:03 pm
Thanks again for all the suggestions even if I did hate Campfire Tales.
Comment by John Allison — October 1, 2008 @ 3:04 pm
Comment by swarez — October 1, 2008 @ 5:41 pm
Comment by Ashley Townsend — October 1, 2008 @ 5:56 pm