Eye See You

Title: Eye See You

Year of Release: 2002

Date Viewed: July 4th, 2010

MPAA Rating: R

Originally titled D-Tox, filmed in 1999 and trapped in the can until 2002, Eye See You is a horror thriller starring Sylvester Stallone as distressed policeman Jake Malloy. One by one, Malloy's fellow cops are being murdered by someone with an extreme hatred for the police force. The killer also has a personal grudge against Malloy since he was the one responsible for almost catching him during a previous spree. The murders are baffling to the police and it causes Malloy to act uneasy yet still level-headed enough to perform his duties.

That all changes when the killer targets Malloy's wife and kills her in his signature manner: gouging out the eyes with an electric screw, slicing the rest of the body and hanging it from the ceiling with rope. Distraught by the events, Malloy withdraws from his duties and becomes dependant on alcohol to ease his suffering. After a suicide attempt, Malloy is sent to a rehabilitation clinic for policemen located in the middle of ice-covered Nowheresville. (According to the internet, it's actually in Wyoming.)

Malloy is not given any chances to heal his wounds. The killer assumes the identity of one of the clinic patients and begins murdering everyone one-by-one in the same familiar fashion. With an ice storm surrounding the area, escape is impossible. Exposing and extinguishing the killer is the only option for survival.

I rented this movie because the idea of seeing Sylvester Stallone in a horror film was intriguing to me. It's kind of like watching Christian Bale in a comedy or Steven Seagal playing a wimp. It's a case of two unlikely associations. Stallone is an underrated dramatic actor so his presence is welcome here. The problems lie with the film's script which isn't actually that bad.

Aside from the stretch of a rehab clinic being so far cut off from the outside world, there isn't really anything wrong that stands out. The story is set up fine. The characters are introduced fine and are given things to do. The pace is steady. Even the revelation of the killer is not that predictable. Yet for all these good things, something seemed missing. Perhaps an interesting twist with the plot or characters was needed. Whatever the case may be, the movie is too formulaic and not as exciting as it should be.

Perhaps the reason it had stayed in the studio vault for so long was that nobody had enough faith to give it a wide release for an attempt at big profits. It would have been hard to market this as something special when it clearly does not appear that way on the surface. So instead it was quietly released and went unnoticed by most of the general public.

Eye See You had potential to be an interesting tale. If only there was a way to help the audiences care about what was going on, it would have had a better chance with the marketing department. The effort is there but what's missing is the entertainment value that thriller fans expect from their genre.

Rating: 5