Eight sassy delinquent teens.
One crazy weekend at a dilapidated hotel.
And a professional wrestler ripping people's eyes out with his grubby fingernails.
"See No Evil" is not for the kiddies. The whole movie is just an over-the-top gruesome romp from shocking violent scene to ear-curdling scream.
Any attempt at a plot seems to have been put on the back burner. Instead, the focus is on intense disturbing acts of violence. It's possible that the film could grow to be a cult classic, but it's never going to make it into the Criterion Collection.
Because the film is a World Wrestling Entertainment Films production, it's only logical that the main maniac is WWE superstar Kane. The 7-foot beast of a man and "brother" of the Undertaker spends most of the film collecting eyeballs in jars filled with yellow liquid.
Jacob Goodnight, played by Kane in the film, is also very handy with an ax and doesn't die when he's shot or repeatedly beaten with a lead pipe. He's like a cross between Andre the Giant and The Incredible Hulk, but with a strong will to torture anyone who steps foot into his abandoned, ramshackle hotel.
The one glimpse of a deeper meaning or plotline comes with Goodnight's mother. Throughout the film, there are flashbacks showing Goodnight, as a tender and confused youth, locked inside of a metal cage while his mother yells at him for not being religious enough.
Apparently all this shouting at Goodnight caused him to turn into a slow-witted slaughterer. And the twist is — I'm telling you because the plot is not important to the film, which is all about the carnage — Goodnight's mother is running the hotel. She's the brains behind all the serial-killer madness. So it's kind of like a Norman Bates-type of situation, but a lot less thought-out.
With a director named Gregory Dark, audience members should know they're walking into a gory, dark film, rather than an introspectively light movie.
"See No Evil" also seems like it could turn into porn at any time, which probably has something to do with Dark's early films including, "Between the Cheeks 2," and "New Wave Hookers."
At any rate, there's only one scene with brief nudity in this film, so Dark managed to resist returning to the allure of his earlier films.
The eight obscure actors playing the troublesome teenagers are not that impressive, but their main purpose is to be scared, scared a little bit more and then get whacked by Goodnight. So really, they don't have much room to grow as characters.
This isn't Shakespeare; it's a bloodthirsty free-for-all with a former porn director at the helm.
What the film's really missing are some quality one-liners. Because everything is so biliously horrific, the tension needed to be broken with some goofy exchanges. Instead, the dialogue is rather cliché and expected from all of the characters.
The music in the film is terrible. Rather than some eerie violin tunes, the movie has random overproduced rap songs. Booming rap beats don't set the mood for a scary film; they set the scene for a fraternity party or a Sean "P. Diddy" Combs bash.
"See No Evil" is only worth seeing if you feel like turning your brain off for an hour and a half, and have a desire to cover your eyes because the action is so repulsive.
