The Eye Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

The Eye Blu-ray Movie Review

Should you have your eye on this disc for your collection?

Reviewed by Martin Liebman July 3, 2008

Some say seeing is believing.

The Eye is exactly the kind of movie I expect to dislike. It has very few original bones in its celluloid body which, in a way, makes it oddly similar to a film like The Ruins. Rather than the group of teens in deadly trouble, The Eye is another one of those Asian horror remakes for Western audiences, much like The Ring and The Grudge before it (this time the film in question is a remake of the Hong Kong film Jian Gui). Unlike The Ruins, The Eye manages to defy convention and demonstrate a slightly more competent level of filmmaking and storytelling. The Eye still plods along, burdened by some very typical horror movie contrivances, but the story itself is just fresh enough, and the performances by Jessica Alba (Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer) and Alessandro Nivola (Face/Off) are good enough to make me forget and mostly ignore the bountiful presence of horror clichés and lose myself in a fairly solid, if not somewhat predictable, story.

There's something...or someone...in my eye!

Jessica Alba portrays Sydney Wells, a woman who has been blind since a firecracker accident took her eyesight from her at the age of five. Now an adult, she's the recipient of a cornea transplant and is able to see for the first time. From the moment the doctor removes her bandages, however, Sydney senses something is wrong. She sees a blurred, shadowy figure in the room with her doctor and sister, a figure that is there one minute and gone the next. Over the coming weeks as her vision improves, she begins to see unexplained phenomena, including shadowy, dark, and horrifying figures, oddly-behaved individuals, and glimpses of a tragedy, all of which haunt Sydney's mind. As she begins piecing together the puzzle of her unique visions, she enlists the help of Dr. Paul Faulkner (Nivola) who, despite his initial skepticism, sympathizes with the on-edge, frightened, and nearly traumatized Sydney. Together they will attempt to discover the secret of the eyes.

The Eye offers audiences a horror movie that is a cut above the typical rubbish horror/slasher/gore-fest movies that have become so prevalent over the past few years. In fact, gore is relatively absent throughout the picture (it is rated PG-13). The Eye does feature that other prominent horror movie contrivance that relies on loud, sudden noises and flashes of odd imagery to evokes scares from its audiences, but what The Eye does better than so many other horror movies is to focus on moving forward, letting the scares and noises fit seamlessly into the story rather than build a story that is focused on eliciting cheap scares and thrills from a jittery audience. In fact, I found myself pleasantly surprised on more than one occasion when the movie chose to forego cheap scares when other, similar (and in this case, lesser) films would have inserted one. Although the audience experiences a few scares in the first few minutes of the film, The Eye takes its time developing its characters and story, but the pace of the film never suffers as a result.

Believe it or not, Jessica Alba is very good in her role. She plays a blind person marvelously and she obviously put quite a bit of effort into studying the world of the blind to emote such a fine performance. Both of the film's primary characters are well-written and well-versed. At one point in the film, Paul delivers a fine speech regarding the miracle of sight, the expectations that come with the ability to see, and the difficulty in adjusting to the world of vision from a world of blindness. Even as someone who has always seen, I never thought too deeply about just how much the gift of sight effects every little nuance of our life. There are no revelations during the speech; it is simply an example of the intelligence of both the script and direction that went into this movie, and is one several reasons why The Eye works somewhat better than all of the similar, more generic horror films of recent vintage.

The Eye Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Eye is visible on Blu-ray with a stylized 1080p, 2.35:1 high definition transfer. The image is generally soft around the edges with very little sharpness in fine detail on background objects for the entire length of the film. There is a very dark, drab, deliberately dull tone to the movie as well. Colors are generally lackluster and muted and lighting is almost always low, even in various daytime, exterior shots. Inside the hospital, notably, be it day or night, well-lit or not, there is a dark and gray feel to the movie that, along with appropriately creepy music in several scenes, sets the tone and feel for the entirety of the film. There always seems to be a slightly unnatural tint to the film; it generally leans towards a gray or green hue. This is a different-than-normal image to be sure. With such a dark tone, we can expect black levels to be excellent, and they do not disappoint. Detail is unremarkable but solid. The dreary look of the movie seems to the be the biggest culprit of the lack of detail, but nevertheless, background detail is fuzzy and sketchy at best, and even foreground images, including central characters framed on-screen, lack the highest of fine detail. Once again, it seems that the lack of detail is a result of the intentionally dark look of the film more so than any fault at the transfer level. Flesh tones generally appear an off-tone, usually pasty or overly red. Lionsgate's Blu-ray release of The Eye seems to replicate the intended dreary, dark tone of the film perfectly, a look which is reminiscent of "The X-Files," and The Eye might very well fit in as a standout episode of that show. This transfer is not reference material as a result, but staying true to the filmmaker's intent should be the primary goal of every Blu-ray release, and The Eye seems to do just that.

The Eye Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Eye might have you transplanting your speakers after the movie is over, because this one is a sonic barrage that just might wear out your current set. Presented in a lossless DTS-HD MA 7.1 soundtrack, The Eye is an assault on the aural senses. One thing I couldn't help but to think is that such a lively, active, and dominating soundtrack fits well into a movie about a blind girl. They say when one sense is removed, the others improve to compensate, and no doubt about it, The Eye makes its sonic presence heard and felt loudly and clearly, perhaps as a means of relaying the importance of sound to a character such as Sydney, or maybe it's just a good old rocking soundtrack. Nevertheless, the movie starts out with a bang and never lets up. Great atmospherics, terrific sound placement in every speaker, and a big, loud, bass-heavy and room-filling scare that made me feel like I was listening at a top-dollar movie theater lead things off. Even the playing of "Happy Birthday" by a full orchestra is a wonderful aural experience. A subsequent rainstorm is perfect in its reproduction, encompassing the entire listening area, and I thought I was about to get wet. We're not even five minutes into the movie, and I'm already grinning from ear to ear thanks to this soundtrack. The film's more subtle, front-heavy music is also pleasing to the senses. In chapter three, as Sydney is in the hallway of the hospital, she (and we) are assaulted by a 360-degree sound field that is plenty scary in its own right, not even paying attention to the visuals seen on the screen. Throughout the movie, the loud, banging noises that always find their way into these kinds of horror movies barrage the viewer. An explosion in chapter nine is a perfect example of the kind of powerful bass heard throughout the soundtrack. Your seat will rattle, your pets will scatter, and you'll be in awe of the awesome power of this soundtrack. From the loudest of bumps and booms to the slightest of nuances and the perfectly-reproduced dialogue and music in between, The Eye offers listeners a wonderful soundtrack. The extra two channels in the back add a nice extra bit of oomph and realism about the mix, and it's exciting to see Lionsgate continue to offer lossless soundtracks with these additional channels.

The Eye Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Viewers can peer deeper into The Eye thanks to several available extras. Birth of the Shadowman (1080p, 1:39) is a very brief look at the origins of this character and a brief behind-the-scenes glance at the actor who portrays him. Becoming Sydney (1080p, 4:48) features interviews with Jessica Alba and others that focuses on various aspects of her character, from playing the violin to learning how to act blind. Shadow World: Seeing the Dead (1080p, 8:32) takes a solid look into the theories of "cellular memory." The Eye: An Explosive Finale (1080p, 6:09) looks at the filming of the movie's climactic sequence. Finally, disc one's supplemental features conclude with eight deleted scenes (480p, 11:21) and the film's theatrical trailer (1080p, 2:10). Disc two contains a standard-definition "digital copy" of the film so that buyers can view the film on portable video devices.

The Eye Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Co-directors David Moreau and Xavier Palud have found the perfect balance of each horror element that is found in The Eye, and the result is a surprisingly effective, well-paced, tense, and most importantly, interesting movie with characters and a plot we actually care about. The Eye offers no groundbreaking elements, and is certainly no classic-in-the-making, but it does manage to stand above the crowd of its horror movie brethren and cry out to be noticed for doing this style of horror better than most other similar films. As usual, Lionsgate has put out a stellar release. The studio continues to impress, and The Eye offers up the expected solid video quality and mesmerizing audio. Although a bit thin in the supplements department, The Eye is still a Blu-ray disc that you should enjoying seeing as part of your collection. Recommended.