Plot Summary

Blind for most of her life, concert violinist Sydney Wells (Jessica Alba) is the recipient of a double corneal transplant that restores her sight. With the help of her doctor (Alessandro Nivola) and sister (Parker Posey), she adjusts to being able to see again. But she is soon beset by frightening visions of a terrifying alternative world which only she can see.

Memorable Lines

Mrs. Cheung: He’s here, isn’t he? My Tomi?
Helen Wells: What was that about? Who’s Tomi?
Sydney Wells: Her son.
Helen Wells: Where was he?
Sydney Wells: He’s dead.

****

Sydney Wells: See, I have a connection with your daughter.
Rosa Martinez: Dios mio. You have her eyes.

****

Sydney Wells: I’m not seeing ghost images. I see…
Dr. Paul Faulkner: What? Dead people?

****

Sydney Wells: There have been cases of transplant recipients who’ve actually shown characteristics of the donor.
Dr. Paul Faulkner: Right, that’s cellular memory.
Sydney Wells: Yeah. There was a liver transplantation in Kentucky last year. She almost immediately felt the urge to take up smoking and she hadn’t her entire life.
Dr. Paul Faulkner: The donor was a chain smoker?
Sydney Wells: Down to the same brand.

****

Sydney Wells: I’m seeing things that aren’t real. I’m seeing things I shouldn’t see. I’m dreaming things I’ve never seen. This surgery was supposed to make me normal.

****

Thoughts from the HauntedHouses.com team

Please, Hollywood, stop with the awful remakes of superior Asian horror films! You’re killing us. Do you realize how many times we have to sit ourselves down with a DVD of Kaidan, Onibaba, Kairo, or A Tale of Two Sisters to cleanse our cinematic soul after sitting through yet another professionally produced yet soulless Yankee Doodle do-over? Many, many times. It took us three straight viewings of Fruit Chan’s feature-length Dumplings – and a double shot of Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare and Anno Hideaki’s bubblegum gun-babe epic Cutie Honey – to cauterize the open wound in our mind left by the recent Wes Craven-made Nightmare on Puke Street remake (aka Pulse) of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s splendid masterwork, Kairo. Already this year we’ve seen a bad Takashi Miike film made worse (One Missed Call), and now the directing duo behind the French shocker Them has been given free rein to botch up Thailand-based directors Danny and Oxide Pang’s 2002 spookfest.

Problems begin immediately as Alba’s stiff acting isn’t nearly as emotionally affecting as the original film’s wonderful Lee Sin-Je. Alba plays concert violinist Sydney Wells, who, having been sightless since the age of 5 after a tragic, fireworks mishap, undergoes a corneal transplant that leaves her with the ability to see the dead, who, it turns out, are everywhere. As an added bonus, Parker Posey, as Sydney’s guilt-ridden sister, Helen, appears briefly and manages to be both otherworldly and grim without the benefit of Hal Hartley. Ghosts, like the poor, are always with us, as Sydney soon discovers via her new, blurry vision, but only one notable set-piece from the Pang Brothers’ film succeeds as well here. Worst of all, this Eye finishes not with the mounting dread and spectacular tragedy of the original film but with the trademark myopic laziness of Hollywood’s stylistically blank remake factory.

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