My Little Eye

One house. Five people. Six months. One million dollars. A reality show webcast offers five young people the opportunity to make money by staying in a house for six months with the only catch being that if any of them leave then none of them win anything. After some time in the house with loads of boredom, one of them gets a letter saying his grandfather has died. He wants to leave but nobody wants to make it that easy for him to blow all their money. When bricks get delivered instead of supplies and a stranger who happens by the house says he has never seen or even heard of their reality show, alarm bells start to ring.

When this came out I just assumed it was a slasher movie that decided to try and ride the wave of reality show popularity all the way to the box office. Even if that was the case, it didn't really work and this film didn't do a great deal of business in the UK – although respectable returns considering it was low budget anyway. The film takes a very "Blair Witch" approach to things by being pretty unnerving rather than out and out scary or gory. The director cleverly uses the angles and grainy appearance of Big Brother (night vision included) to invoke the feeling of the series but also to raise the tension. It is a bit of a gimmick but it does work because, despite it showing its budget, the cuts and the angels do raise tension.

The problem is that the plot is never as good as it should have been. It goes where you expect it to do and there isn't much more to it than that. The film could easily have been making a point about the exploitative nature of such reality shows, the type of people that go on them and the sort of things that we turn in to watch (lets be honest – the fights and the sex). It does these if you think about it but the delivery lacks the intelligence that the concept potentially had. It is a shame because this would have been better if it had had this commentary because it would have covered up for the lack of substance, plot and development of the film. The cast are fairly average which suits the reality TV feel of the film.

Overall then this is a film all about atmosphere and tension – well handled by director Evans. The concept offers commentary but the film delivers none or very little; what remains is a simple thriller in the low budget mould of Blair Witch. As such it works for the majority of the running time on atmosphere alone but the descent in the final 20 minutes didn't really work for me. An interesting film for this aspect but sadly lacking in things like commentary, substance, development and total worth.

If there was ever a film that lies about itself on it's publicity posters it is My Little Eye. The poster says "Truly Terrifying " and "The real stuff of nightmares". Anybody who has seen this film we see what a joke these statements are. If this film is Terrifying then i must have fallen asleep at those momments. I Dont think i have seen a more duller horror flick than this in a very long time. I remember looking at my watch after 70 minutes and thinking " When is anything going to happen?!".and before i knew it it was over and nothing of any interest had happened! Im not a lover of American slasher /stalker movies such as Scream but at least they have a bit of suspence this had NONE . None what so ever. The film looked like it had been pieced together by a primary school kid who had no idea in which order each scene should go. Appalling trash. 3 out of 10.

My Little Eye takes the premise of 'Big Brother' and warps it. Five 'contestants' are invited to stay in a house for six months but if any of them leave, they all lose the $1million on offer.

Where this film really works is in its use of sound and sudden shocks - early on a raven in the dark provides some truly 'jump out of your skin' moments, the rear channels working over time to engulf the viewer in a feeling of dread.

The film gets darker and darker in its tone as we begin to realise that what the contestants signed up for what very different to what they thought they had. Feelings of dread and hopelessness pervade the screen as we, along with the contestants begin to learn the truth behind the game and its very dark secrets.

Many words have been used to describe this classic fright-fest and in the case it seems wholly appropriate to use both 'Harrowing' and 'Disturbing' in this context. I went in expecting a frightening and upsetting horror yarn and that's precisely what I got.

Full marks to all involved - this is no easy ride and for all you horror fans out there bored of the glossy popcorn fodder of Scream and its ilk, this will be a welcome breath of fresh air.

Watch it - just not alone!

Five strangers are brought together to take part in a reality web cast, the rules are simple; they must stay in an isolated house together for 6 months to receive the prize of $1 Million, if anyone of them leaves early they all lose.

When strange things begin to occur in the house, the group suspect that someone is trying to scare them out of the house; but perhaps there is more to it than meets the eye.

Marc Evans Directs a cast of relative unknowns through this quite fresh feeling chiller, and he manages to create a dark and creepy atmosphere that helps to build and sustain the tension in preparation for a fine climax.

OK, so its a fairly trashy and a little easy to predict at times; but My Little Eye still prevails as a pretty original piece of work, that provides a few shocks.

7/10

Setting the plot in the house of an internet broadcast reality show adds some new and modern flavour to what would otherwise have been just a "seen it before"-movie. And allthough the reality show of it is nicely incorporated into the plot, it still basically a fairly standard horror movie set in an old creepy house in the middle of nowhere, and provoking only moderate terror in the viewer at that.

Oh, and some of the plot twists are fairly predictable, at least I saw them coming.