Let's put aside the fact that this film has some creepy moments but zero actual scares. Sorry, I jumped all throughout The Grudge and I knew while I was jumping that it was a terrible film. This didn't scare me. Noroi? Crapped my pants. This? I was laughing two thirds of the way through. Why?
Because I just might nominate this film for most contrived ending of all time. Even disregarding the sheer amount of plot devices this film borrowed (Angel Heart and Jacob's Ladder are all over this film), the last third was absolutely dumbfounding. My jaw was on the floor from the sheer melodrama of it all. I saw this film on lists with Ju-on, Ringu, and a few other notable J-scarers, but boy, if this scared you, Ringu will literally kill you. For the record, Ringu didn't scare me either. Not like the American remake did. But that's a whole other can of worms.
The Eye suffers from a serious dollop of schmaltz. Romantic subplot? Check. Ridiculously cheery classical piano music? Check. A "things are back to normal and I've gone through a lot but learned even more and everything's fine now" ending? Check.
And hey presto, to top the whole thing off, a story with more plot holes than a cemetery after a tornado. And these aren't plot holes that film enthusiasts (not buffs, that denotes some sort of effort) will only catch and not the average viewer. You'd have to be awfully close to blind yourself to not be asking yourself some serious questions at the end of this film. Like, "What'd they use to make those fire effects, MS Paint?" or "Was the test audience for this movie a bunch of old women that said something along the lines of 'You really oughta include a series of flashback shots interleaved with shots of the present so that viewers won't get confused as to the already-obvious story arc similarities'?"
Not a good horror movie, not a good thriller. If you want to look at it as a film about a woman struggling post eye surgery that was actually insane the whole time, maybe that's a better film.
Because I just might nominate this film for most contrived ending of all time. Even disregarding the sheer amount of plot devices this film borrowed (Angel Heart and Jacob's Ladder are all over this film), the last third was absolutely dumbfounding. My jaw was on the floor from the sheer melodrama of it all. I saw this film on lists with Ju-on, Ringu, and a few other notable J-scarers, but boy, if this scared you, Ringu will literally kill you. For the record, Ringu didn't scare me either. Not like the American remake did. But that's a whole other can of worms.
The Eye suffers from a serious dollop of schmaltz. Romantic subplot? Check. Ridiculously cheery classical piano music? Check. A "things are back to normal and I've gone through a lot but learned even more and everything's fine now" ending? Check.
And hey presto, to top the whole thing off, a story with more plot holes than a cemetery after a tornado. And these aren't plot holes that film enthusiasts (not buffs, that denotes some sort of effort) will only catch and not the average viewer. You'd have to be awfully close to blind yourself to not be asking yourself some serious questions at the end of this film. Like, "What'd they use to make those fire effects, MS Paint?" or "Was the test audience for this movie a bunch of old women that said something along the lines of 'You really oughta include a series of flashback shots interleaved with shots of the present so that viewers won't get confused as to the already-obvious story arc similarities'?"
Not a good horror movie, not a good thriller. If you want to look at it as a film about a woman struggling post eye surgery that was actually insane the whole time, maybe that's a better film.