I'd rather lose my eye than watch...

*****

And so the era of American-remade Asian horror cult classics continues. David Moreau and Xavier Palud’s remake of the Hong Kong classic Gin gwai was rated as just “Another tedious remake of an Asian horror film” on rottentomatoes.com, receiving only a 4.2 out of 10. I know it’s over a month late, but I was only recently able to catch The Eye.

Hottie-boom-bottie Jessica Alba stars as Sydney Wells, a violinist who lost her eyesight at the age of five while playing with firecrackers with her sister, Helen, played by Parker Posey. Helen convinces Sydney to get corneal transplants, allowing her to see for the first time in over 10 years; but what she begins to see turns out to be more frightening than a lifetime of darkness. It’s up to Sydney to find the meaning behind her mysterious and daunting visions before they come true.

While an interesting plot, the movie does not live up the potential the Pang brothers set it up for in 2002. The eerie style they usually employ was missing from Moreau and Palud’s 2008 version. The elements were there for an exciting thriller, but the film unfortunately just didn’t follow through.

It seems that recent horror movies have employed lazy tactics in attempting to scare the audience, and The Eye is full of them. Loud noises, sudden faces and disappearing apparitions are shocking, but they are only momentary scares. The best horror films are those that leave things unexplained, that scare the audience with silence and a lack of imagery rather than flashy sets, ridiculous screams and computer-animated ghoulies.

The Eye follows the same tired footsteps of The Grudge and The Return; even The Ring comes to mind when watching this film because of the striking similarities, although I much prefer it to the other Asian remakes. Isn’t it funny that they all start with the word “The”? Also, I hate when lead characters narrate, either throughout or just in part; it really makes the movie seem worse than it may already be.

The only reason I could possibly think any person would still want to see this movie would be to drool over Jessica Alba or the lead male, New Englander Alessandro Nivola.

What a hunk.