Evil Eyes (2004) - a Movie Review

Evil Eyes is a horror thriller starring Adam Baldwin as Jeff Stenn. Jennifer Gates plays Jeff's wife Tree Stenn. Jeff is a Hollywood screenwriter who is having trouble finding work. He gets a job from the creepy George, played by Udo Kier, writing a true-crime screenplay about a director who killed his family 35 years ago. Soon Jeff is plagued by nightmares and guilt as the murders he writes about start happening in real life. Warning: my movie review contains plot spoilers.

Evil Eyes is a decent horror story with a typical ending. The movie did drag on in some parts but overall it is decent story. The reason for the name of the movie, Evil Eyes, isn't revealed until the end but it is an interesting twist.

As Jeff does research for the screenplay, he starts to develop nightmares. Throughout the entire movie Jeff is trying to figure out why the director went crazy and killed his family thirty five years ago. The reason is never spelled out exactly but the viewer can draw several conclusions why. Perhaps the reason is revealed and I just missed it. The movie was a little repetitive towards the end and I was glad when it finally ended.

The stress of researching the killer, living in the killer's house, and the looming deadline drives Jeff to the point of insanity. He begins to think he has the ability to make things happen by what he writes. He has fun with it for awhile but then he develops guilt and tries to tone down the story. Of course the creepy director insists on more violence. Jeff evens begins to think he is the surviving child of the crazy killer and that is why he has the power to make things happen. The cool twist is that the surviving child was actually a girl and not a boy. The aunt of the dead killer so helpfully points out that the girl has some rare color-blindness where she thinks the color red is green. Ahhh, now I understand the title of the movie. Anyway, of course the girl just happens to be Jeff's wife Tree.

In a moment of insanity Jeff decides that his wife must die. Hmmm, just like the murderer from 35 years ago, apparently life is repeating itself. After confronting Tree after the death of her parents, he has starts to have second thoughts. Tree insists her parents were killed by accidents caused by another earthquake, which were actually very plausible. But then she makes knives fly towards Jeff and he accidentally drops an axe in her stomach as he tries to defend himself from the knives. She dies so then he kills himself.

That ending was a little annoying. I got the impression that Tree is evil incarnate and her child is evil incarnate. I thought the point of George pushing the violent screenplay was for Tree to discover her powers and create destruction. But yet history just repeated itself and everyone died. But this time there is no surviving child to repeat the cycle. Now I am just confusing myself and I am not for sure what the true point of the film is. Anyway the film is decent. I give the movie 3 out of 5 stars.