The Eye is worth watching or How the Japanese are ripping me off.

So now that I expressed my disappointment in the latest horror movie trend, let me tell you about a movie I watched the other night. If it is to be classified, I guess I would use the new Hollywood buzz term, J-Horror. This movie is a Japanese movie, so there were subtitles. I am not sure I would classify this as a horror movie, unless you count The Sixth Sense as horror. It is called The Eye and it is a very interesting and suspenseful movie that seems very familiar to an idea I had, well, somewhat.

Here is the synopsis, a girl who has been blind since the age of two is going to receive a cornea transplant. When her bandages come off and she starts to see again, she starts to see “things.” Independent Film Channel, which is what channel I saw it on (check you listings) described what she saw as malevolent visions. She then tries to find out how to stop these visions, if she can stop them.

The Eye has some pretty good scares, it is not a slasher flick and there isn’t much blood and gore. It is just a good psychological scare movie with some cool twists and turns. I had read a few years ago that Tom Cruise has bought the U.S. rights to this film and his production company was going to make an American version. There is also a sequel, but I imagine Japanese sequels are like American sequels, rarely good, but you can check that out on Amazon or imdb. If you have IFC on your cable or satellite system, use your guide to find it (if it coming back on in the near future) and DVR or record it and check it out. I will link this to the Amazon page in case you want to purchase it. I believe the cheapest price is $8.75.

As I said, The Eye seems very familiar to an idea I had at one time, or something like that. I had an idea for a book, movie, graphic novel, or something, a few years back about a woman who has an accident and goes into a coma and has a near death experience. She meets God and is told she is to come back to earth. It is not her time yet. She is told she will return but she will be changed. When she returns and wakes up, she is blind. She can however see shapes, as in a person’s aura, I guess you would say. She would be able to tell by the color of a person’s aura what kind of person they would be, whether good (white or a light color) or evil (dark color or black). Or in some cases grey, as in this person could go either way, their soul has not gone to one side or the other. That was about as far as I got except I wanted her significant other to be grey and the ending has her seeing his aura turning to black.

It sounded pretty cool to me but I never got my lazy butt in gear to do anything about it. I originally envisioned this as a comic book/graphic novel and she would use this gift/curse to fight demons or evil. Then I just moved on to more TV watching and less thinking. I wonder if I can sue the makers of The Eye. I better get Jackie Chiles on the horn.