Tobe Hooper can be proud! More than 30 years after his "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", the gritty and sadistic type of terror this landmark introduced is more popular than ever before! Hooper's original got remade, and already received another sequel, but the typical 70's brutality also inspired several new horror franchises like "Saw", "Wrong Turn" and "House of 1.000 Corpses". "See No Evil" is another dark and very raw TCM-rip off, but it's probably the most unimaginative and pointless one I've seen thus far. I guess this happens when a former pornography director assembles an untalented cast led by a wrestling star. And if then the script doesn't contain any bright ideas or genuine shocks, you've got another dire and often irritating film that thankfully only lasts 85 minutes. "See No Evil" introduces a new and remarkable villain; some kind of crossover between Jason Vorhees (with inexplicable healing powers) and Leatherface (a docile retard) named Jacob Goodnight. Jacob has a respectable collection of human eyeballs in jars and firmly believes that he saves his victims' souls by poking their eyes out with a rusty hook. Four years after police detective Frank Williams put a bullet in Jacob's head, he shows up again in an ramshackle hotel where eight juvenile delinquents are sent for community cleaning service. The petty criminals and their supervisor Frank, with his mechanical arm, are easy targets for the gigantic axe-wielding and hook-swinging psychopath, but it seems Jacob also has an accomplice in the abandoned hotel. Not a single surprising twist or clever gimmick here, "See No Evil" is a run-of-the-mill slasher flick with embarrassing dialogs and lousy acting. The teenage leads are all equally disposable, so at least we're treated to a reasonable amount of barbaric murders. But even the gore is actually a bit disappointing, since the photography is often too dark to see what's going on. Despite being as big as a house and as ugly as the seventh layer of hell, Jacob Goodnight is one of the LEAST scary homicidal maniacs in the history of horror films. He doesn't speak, although I suppose that's a good thing regarding the acting skills of a wrestler, but he cries a lot and looks at his female victims with sad little puppy-eyes. The 'twist' near the end of the film is laughably predictable and the climatic battle unsatisfying. And alas, from a director who spent more than two decades making porn flicks, I expected he put in a little more sleaze and nudity. "See No Evil" is an incredibly waste of time and money, still I'm pretty sure a handful of sequels will inevitably follow.
Review of See No Evil
