Release Date: May 19, 2006
MPAA Rating: R for strong gruesome violence and gore throughout, language, sexual content and some drug use
Directed by: Gregory Dark
Starring: Kane, Christina Vidal, Samantha Noble, Luke Pegler, Michael J. Pagan, Steven Vidler, Rachael Taylor, Ponny McNamee, Craig Horner, Michael Wilder, Tiffany Lamb, Cecilly Polson, Cory Robinson
Plot:
Seven feet tall. Four hundred pounds. A rusty steel plate screwed into his skull and razor-sharp fingernails that pluck out his victims’ eyes. Reclusive psychopath Jacob Goodnight is holed up in the long-abandoned and rotting Blackwell Hotel, alone with his nightmares until eight petty criminals show up for community service duty along with the cop who put a bullet in Jacob’s head four years ago. When one of their own is kidnapped by the killer and her fate uncertain, the remaining lawbreakers must fight this indestructible force of nature with a violent score to settle.
Review:
WWE films gets underway with its first motion picture starring Kane. With plenty of money to spare, Vince McMahon and WWE have a future set with films. Their first feature is a horror film, a slasher one involving teens who have committed crimes and are sent to clean up a hotel. Its of course, common sense to expect simply mediocre acting between unknown teens that were casted from the streets. This is exactly what you get, some of them are better than others, but none of them standout.
The screenplay has trouble making them even look decent enough because of its poor and laughable dialogue. See No Evil was written by Dan Madigan who has nothing but some WWE Smackdown writing experience. Its clear that many involved in this project are from in the wrestling organization, but the talent here comes up short. This film is poorly produced with a story that is typical. All we get here is a psychopath that one by one kills each teen as they enter the wrong room.
See No Evil is mostly just Kane killing them, but it attempts to deliver a story to Kane's past. It features a childhood thats is incredibly exaggerated with a mother that would treat him like an animal. This seems to traumatize him and send him into a raving psychopath whose fetish is snatching off human eyeballs. This is brutal and downright disgusting and horror films are supposed to be frightening, not disgusting. While most things in See No Evil is over the top, it still does pass significantly as entertainment, its just not well made entertainment.
In order to find this film watchable, you need to know what to expect and its clear from the start. This isn't an achievement though and puts the horror genre back into its stereotype. Slasher horror films were once original and scary, but that was back when Halloween was released in 1978. Now it has simply become repetitive and plain ugly. See No Evil is an ugly film and never necessarily frightening, but it still can manage to entertain for all the freaks out there. Those expecting for Kane to speak in this film he says only two things and they are No and I see it. His acting career has been set.
See No Evil tries though, it tries to feel the killers past and notice that he went through a lot of terrible things. In result, this makes you kill teenagers at random for no real reason and the ones that live must have religious markings. If his film wanted to have the scare factor intact it would need to build up the scare and deliver it unexpectedly. Unfortunately, we can all see Kane coming a mile away and his intentions. This film has a predictable ending, but then even aims for laughter at the very final scene. Intentional laughter, but nonetheless stupidity.
While not a terrible horror film, See No Evil is still bad and doesn't deliver what it ultimately sets out to do. The gore aficionados will probably have a blast with this, but anyone who has brains will notice that its a poor film with no anticipation to what happens next. WWE Films has another project in the works and this time it will star Stone Cold Steve Austin. This time we will be witnessing an action thriller. I would like to know whatever happened to wrestlers embarrassing themselves as wrestlers rather than wrestlers embarrassing themselves as actors. Either way it shows that if you have the money you can make anything you put your mind to.
