When I do my rewatches every Shocktober, I look at my DVD shelf to things I haven't checked out in a while. I purchased my copy of My Little Eye when Hollywood video went under for a few dollars and haven't put it in since my first watch, but wanted to give it a revisit.
There are two things to know about this film, released back in 2002; Firstly, its a post Blair Witch Project found footage film. I don't hate found footage as a concept and really enjoy Rec, Cloverfield, and especially Chronicle. My Little Eye does answer one of the main issues with found footage in genre films which is when things get weird, why oh why are they still filming?
The general plot is as follows; five strangers are starring in a web based reality show where they have to spend 6 months in an isolated location. There is a nightly curfew and if any of them are not in the house or grounds after that time, they lose out on a one million prize split five different ways. There are a wide range of (granted, outdated and quite large ) cameras throughout the house and director Marc Evans uses a combination of these cameras to film the majority of the action.
The visual style of the movie, constantly inter cutting between the cameras in the house and more traditional camera setups, gives the film a very creepy voyeuristic vibe. This movie gets a lot of mileage with eerily quiet snowy exteriors and unsettling interiors. The green "night vision" shots make the houseguests look unearthly with glowing eyes. The score is menacing without being too obvious and creaky noises and whirring cameras set up a sense of unease that lingers throughout. I am personally a huge proponent of the concept that nothing is scarier, when filmmakers forgo a masked killer or CGI monster and instead let our imaginations fill in the gaps.
Now this is not a flawless film, and has some issues. First and somewhat bizarrely, we join the action in the final week of the competition, which means the prior six months feel pointless. Feeling that the end and the prize money is within reach, the contestants begin to get stir crazy, either from paranoia, revelations (that have only surfaced in the last week!) or seeming manipulation from whoever is controlling the “game. Each of the characters are slowly picked at and chipped away, with reasons to leave the house coming into play.
The ongoing issue with this as the characters comment on is that they are playing a high stakes reality gameshow. Given Survivor and Big Brother were both huge hits when this movie came out, the blurring of the line as to whether the game is real or these people are being played is a constant theme..
The competitors themselves fall just shy of a host of paint-by-numbers cliches, although in a post Cabin the Woods landscape, you have the archetypes present. There is the mysterious handsome one (Sean CW Johnson), the bizarre nerd (Stephen O’Reilly), the snarky creep (Kris Lemche), the promiscuous outgoing female (Jennifer Sky) and the intelligent, uptight innocent (Laura Regan). It makes for some interesting dynamics and the scenes where their pasts start to come into play make for some of the better aspects of the movie.
The direction it goes in is also as dark as you would hope although with a tease and a build as good as this, it is a shame that the finale falls flat. Despite a late cameo by a current A lister who's star has born a lot brighter since this film, the revelation of what is actually happening and the eventual outcome doesn’t match what has gone before. It makes logical sense but didn't satisfy for me given the supremely creepy buildup. There are a lot of good ideas here but it fails to deliver something as unique as the initial concept.
In the end, My Little Eye suffer from a combination of writing the characters into a bit of a corner as well as the third act being a lot more standard for the genre. I do appreciate movies with a strong opening so this one still holds up fairly well although it just can't stick the landing. I give it a reasonable 6.5/10
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