A gory, classic-style ‘stalk-and-annihilate’ horror movie starring massive pro wrestler Glen ‘Kane’ Jacobs as silent, hulking psychopath Jacob Goodnight, See No Evil isn’t quite the movie it seems to have wanted to be – i.e. it didn’t create a new Jason Voorhees/Freddy Krueger-level icon for horror (although who knows what a couple sequels might do?) – but it did create a solid entry into the slash subgenre that fans will certainly want to check out. Armed with a heavy, hook-ended chain that he swings around to wreak all sorts of carnage; and possessed of a dislike for being looked at, that motivates him to rip victim’s eyes out of their sockets, Goodnight is a known serial killer who for the last couple of years has been holed up inside a derelict old building.
When a team of young convicts (mostly low-level crimes, including a cute female animal rights activist arrested for liberating a passel of lab animals; plus a couple of really unlikable nastier criminals) are sent, along with correctional officer chaperones, to the old building to clean it up as part of work release rehabilitation, the building’s tenant has a fresh supply of targets. Also in the mix is the cop who nearly brought Goodnight down a couple of years previous.
A bare-bones story is helped along towards the end by flashbacks starting to detail the origins of the Goodnight character, and by some abrupt, and surprisingly effective, swerves in the character’s psyche. There are certainly a few problems with the story. For starters, only a few of the characters are at all likable, and nobody really seems like they should pose much of a challenge for Jacob. That’s occasionally been a problem in other, similar movies (a couple of the Elm Streets, for example) and they’ve sometimes gotten around the conundrum of having normal humans stand a chance against an extremely powerful antagonist through a key weakness in the character or through an extremely well-timed convergence of events that opens up an opportunity to level the playing field. Though a few have been a little too convenient, they’ve often at least made it plausible that well, yes, if the other guys Did manage to have such a stroke of luck befall them, they really might stand a decent chance. (And without suddenly making the antagonist look weaker than in the earlier going) Here though, nothing really adds up with how Goodnight decimates everybody in the first three quarters of the film, and then suddenly he runs into a lot more trouble taking out his victims.
Also, a couple of moments that I think were intended to be humorous fall squarely on their face. Overall though, “See No Evil” delivers a fine movie with an adequately distinctive – and visually memorable – villain, some very visually memorable female cast members (even though the characterization in some cases could have used work), good special effects, and a good working of angles in the last fifteen minutes or so that, while not a twist ending, suddenly adds a more interesting and tragic aspect to Jacob. I wouldn’t at all mind seeing this story continue on with a sequel or too. For those who only dip into horror occasionally, See No Evil isn’t really the best choice. But those who love horror movies – especially if that includes ones like Friday The 13th, Nightmare On Elm Street and Texas Chainsaw Massacre – are likely to really enjoy See No Evil despite a couple of shortcomings.