Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on May 19, 2006, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
There’s one really great and shocking murder setpiece in See No Evil—it’s dead-nasty effective, and surprising in terms of both what happens and the fact that it happens to someone who had earlier seemed to be set up as a surviving character, as well as sporting a touch of grisly irony. The movie could have used more scenes like it, rather than the usual spectacle of dumb young people running around the spooky hallways of an abandoned building, on the way to meeting their fates at the receiving ends of assorted sharp objects.
The protagonists here are a group of youthful criminals who have been dragooned into fixing up an abandoned hotel in exchange for reduced sentences. Their offenses are varied (though naturally, the black guy is the one who can pick locks), and Williams (Steven Vidler), the cop overseeing them, has a dark incident in his past: Four years earlier, he and his partner came across the bloody lair of Jacob Goodnight (WWE wrestler Kane), a hulking man-monster bearing extreme religious trauma and a penchant for cutting out his victims’ eyes. Williams lost a hand to his ax before shooting Jacob—but the killer didn’t die, of course, and he now lurks in the hotel, sometimes moving silently and sometimes making as much advance noise as a Jurassic Park T. rex, stalking and killing his hapless victims and plucking out their eyes with both tools and his own sharpened fingernails.
Jacob’s thing is punishing sin, so it makes sense that he’s got a bunch of delinquents set up as his targets. What it doesn’t make for is a whole lot of sympathy for the guys and girls, who are mostly a disreputable and dislikable lot, with the usual lack of self-preservation instincts. (Even moments that seem to be setups to their advantage don’t pay off; the lock-picker’s skills aren’t called for at a late moment when they’re desperately needed, and a girl who steals a cell phone never uses it to call for help.) At least there’s a reason for them to hang around once they’re aware of Jacob’s presence: The maniac has kidnapped Kira (Samantha Noble), whose religious tattoos and jewelry have caught his eye, and is keeping her captive in various areas of the mazelike hotel.
The building’s interiors, as constructed by production designer Michael Rumpf and his team and photographed by Ben (’Salem’s Lot) Nott, are impressively decrepit and spooky, collectively comprising a fitting slayground for a 7-foot human beast to do his thing. The very settings themselves create a certain tension, occasionally dispelled by the arsenal of flash cuts, visual stutters, rack-focus close-ups and other MTV directorial tricks employed by music-video veteran Gregory Dark. He does better when he simply lets Kane’s physical presence do the work, and the bad-boy grappler certainly cuts an imposing and threatening figure. His aggressiveness, combined with icky makeup FX by Jason Baird, elicit a few minor jolts, but the victims are so disposable and most of the movie is so rote and familiar that it generates little suspense or true horror.
The storyline eventually enters more interesting territory, and Kane briefly gets to do some actual acting, once Jacob’s subliminally established backstory pays off in a major revelation at about the hour mark. The ensuing sequence perks the movie up and gives it a bit more dramatic spine, but—as in another recently reviewed slasher variation, SAM’S LAKE—once the surprise is sprung and paid off, the plot falls right back into stalk-and-bash mode again. Dark and his team do pull off a bravura finale that ends the movie with a bang, which helps make up for the fact that he and screenwriter Dan Madigan elevate the movie’s most obnoxious character to hero status for the concluding scenes, without the guy having earned it.
That key plot turn pays a bit of lip service to granting Jacob more depth than just being a killing machine, and even encouraging a bit of sympathy for his tortured mind. It’s an intriguing tease, and it’s a shame the filmmakers didn’t explore it further. Instead, See No Evil ends up, for all the proficiency of its grotty atmosphere, as just another in the string of films to send a new massive murderer stomping in Jason Voorhees’ footsteps. However appropriate (and marketable) Kane’s casting may be, the movie needed more than his participation to set itself apart.
