Dir. by Gregory Dark - 1 hr. 24 min.
Official Trailer #1
by Clayton Hollifield
There are a couple of reasons why you might be interested in watching "See No Evil." Either you're a horror fan who watches everything, or you're a WWE fan who wants to see whether or not Kane can act. I'm in the latter camp; I rarely watch horror movies for any reason, but my love of professional wrestling can lead me to some supremely dodgy entertainment choices from time to time. I'm not going to say that "See No Evil" is a particularly good or bad horror film; I haven't watched enough of them to be able to tell when something's playing with it's genre's tropes, and it's not like I didn't get anything out of it. But absent Kane's presence, there's no freaking way I would have ever gone within a Blockbuster going-out-of-business sale of "See No Evil."
A few years back, a couple of police officers manage to save a woman from a crazed killer, but not before she's lost her eyes, one of the policemen dies, and the other has his arm chopped off with an axe. Fast forward to today: a bunch of wayward teens get the opportunity to help clean up the decrepit Blackwell Hotel over a long weekend instead of spending a month in jail, while being supervised by the one-armed policeman, Frank Williams (Steven Vidler). What they don't know is that Jacob Goodnight (Glenn "Kane" Jacobs), a giant, ugly, murderous man is lurking in the halls, waiting to pluck out people's eyeballs before he murders them.
If that sounds awful, allow me to offer this music video, also directed by this film's director, Gregory Dark.
Linkin Park - "One Step Closer" - directed by Gregory Dark
So now you know what the movie looks like. Dark is a renowned music video director, helming videos for everyone from Britney Spears to the Melvins. And that's entirely what the movie looks like - one of Dark's videos. I didn't have a problem with that, other than it kept reminding me that I hadn't seen Nine Inch Nails' "Closer" video in forever (which he didn't direct).
As for the question of whether Kane can act, I think it's fair to point out that a lot wasn't required of him here. His wrestling character has always been horror-based, he's a legitimately large, intimidating man, and when you ugly him up and give him a chain with a meat-hook on the end of it, he's pretty damned believable as a twisted serial killer. He's not asked to deliver much in the way of lines, and honestly, the entire thing coasts on Kane's presence and appearance, and the atmosphere that Dark brings to his projects. Kane's wrestling character is fairly talkative for a demon, so it was a little disappointing that most of the dialogue in the film came from the rest of the cast, which basically means a bunch of idiots playing snotty teenagers, without much charm or wit.
This was the first WWE Studios release, and they played it pretty smart. The story is an extension of Kane's character, they hired a director who could pull off the atmosphere necessary, they went with an R-rating (because what the hell is the point of a cleaned-up horror movie), and picked a genre that's fairly profitable, so long as the budgets are kept reasonable. That's not to say that all adds up to a "good movie," because I wouldn't claim that. But I did enjoy watching Kane tear through annoying characters, and I'll probably eventually see the sequel that came out this year (maybe next Halloween). If you like wrestling AND horror movies, this might be more enjoyable. But know going in, you need to like one of those two things, or this might be the longest hour and a half you could spend.
1.5 / 5 - TV (HD)
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