As an 80s porn director (and one half of the infamous Dark Brothers), Gregory Dark was an innovator rather than a follower. As a horror director, however, he seems content to mimic, delivering a gory, grungy, grainy, and heavily MTV-stylised piece of garbage redolent of so many recent genre offerings, and designed to specifically appeal to the 'Friday night' crowd rather than the seasoned horror fan with some semblance of taste.
Including unnecessary sound effects accompanying every rapid zoom and jerky pan, trendy editing (the kind that, for a fraction of a second, burns to white with each cut, or shakes rapidly whilst losing focus), irritating changes in frame-rate, and sepia-toned and bleached imagery, Dark tries pretty much everything in the contemporary horror maker's bag of visual tricks in order to detract from the lack of a decent plot and genuine scares.
But 'smoke and mirrors' don't fool me: See No Evil is a shallow, poorly thought out effort that offers little of interest besides a touch of graphic gore.
The film revolves around a group of convicted juvenile delinquents (both male and female) who are offered a reduction in their sentences if they take part in a project to clean up a derelict hotel, which is being converted into a refuge for the homeless. However, once locked inside the old building, the improbably photogenic youths begin to die nasty deaths at the hands of a musclebound brute (WWE wrestler Kane), who is devoted to punishing sinners by plucking out their eyes.
With Gregory Dark being a one-time bad-boy of porn, I had hoped that this film might have pushed the boundaries a little, offering an overly sleazy mix of sex and violence guaranteed to upset the moral majority. The reality is that See No Evil is a mundane slasher that holds no surprises, offers nothing original, and even holds out on any decent nudity (shame on you, Mr. Dark).
There's a chance that fans of the Saw series, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake and Hostel might enjoy this film; I thought it sucked.
Including unnecessary sound effects accompanying every rapid zoom and jerky pan, trendy editing (the kind that, for a fraction of a second, burns to white with each cut, or shakes rapidly whilst losing focus), irritating changes in frame-rate, and sepia-toned and bleached imagery, Dark tries pretty much everything in the contemporary horror maker's bag of visual tricks in order to detract from the lack of a decent plot and genuine scares.
But 'smoke and mirrors' don't fool me: See No Evil is a shallow, poorly thought out effort that offers little of interest besides a touch of graphic gore.
The film revolves around a group of convicted juvenile delinquents (both male and female) who are offered a reduction in their sentences if they take part in a project to clean up a derelict hotel, which is being converted into a refuge for the homeless. However, once locked inside the old building, the improbably photogenic youths begin to die nasty deaths at the hands of a musclebound brute (WWE wrestler Kane), who is devoted to punishing sinners by plucking out their eyes.
With Gregory Dark being a one-time bad-boy of porn, I had hoped that this film might have pushed the boundaries a little, offering an overly sleazy mix of sex and violence guaranteed to upset the moral majority. The reality is that See No Evil is a mundane slasher that holds no surprises, offers nothing original, and even holds out on any decent nudity (shame on you, Mr. Dark).
There's a chance that fans of the Saw series, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake and Hostel might enjoy this film; I thought it sucked.