Eye for an Eye
by Hope Madden
Way back in 1988, legendary practical FX and make up genius Stan Winston directed his first feature film, Pumpkinhead. In it, a grieving father (Lance Henriksen) awakens an unstoppable evil to avenge his terrible tragedy.
The film remains effective because it is so genuinely heartbreaking. Winston, who also co-wrote, understands the unreasonable, destructive nature of grief, and that is what every frame in the film depicts.
Fast forward nearly 40 years, and veteran music video director Colin Tilley shapes Elisa Victoria and Michael Tully’s similarly themed script Eye for an Eye into something like Pumpkinhead lite.
Still reeling from the car wreck that took her parents, Anna (Whitney Peak, Gossip Girl) moves in with Grandma May (S. Epatha Merkerson, Chicago Med) in the Florida bayou. Grandma’s blind, but behind those big, dark glasses is evidence of something cursed, something supernatural. And now that Anna has gotten mixed up with a couple of locals who bullied the wrong kid, she might be cursed as well.
What works: some really believable performances almost salvage the film. Reeves has an understated, shell-shocked approach that slows down reactions, giving proceedings a dreamy quality while ensuring audiences keep up with plot twists.
Both Laken Giles and Finn Bennett veer outside of cliché as the nogoodnik townies Anna takes up with. And veteran Merkerson elevates the villain-in-waiting grandmother character with endearing bursts of humor.
Everything that works in the film delivers a YA drama. Three lost teens, one finding her way, the other two already poisoned by circumstances, face the music after an ugly incident.
But Eye for an Eye is a horror movie. And besides Grandma May’s empty stare, nothing genre related works. The confused Freddy Krueger-esque mythology feels Scotch-taped onto an indie drama.
Nightmare sequences are weak, backstory feels convenient and of another film entirely. The production values impress, giving creepy bayou vibes that emphasize the horror. But conjuring both Pumpkinhead and A Nightmare on Elm St. sets a very high bar for an indie horror flick, and Eye for an Eye can’t deliver on that promise.
