Oct 8, 2014

8 of 31: See No Evil (2006)

A vain attempt by a formerly prolific blogger to review 31 new (to me) horror films in the 31 days of October. We did it last year and it was a gas. Can we do it once more? Let's find out.
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Platform: Showtime Anytime on Roku
Starring: Kane (Not Hodder)

A horror film produced by WWE Films starring the Demon Kane? Yes, please!

Dirty little secret time. I'm a fan of professional wrestling. Yup. All of my life. From watching Jimmy "Super Fly" Snuka fly off the top rope, to the Freebirds/Von Erich feud, to Mankind being broken in half at Hell in the Cell, to the Daniel Bryan Yes Movement. I dig it all. We even signed up for the WWE Network when it first was offered. So much fun content on there.

Now Kane isn't one of my favorite characters. Hell (get it?), he's one of my least favorite characters in wrestling. But the man who plays Kane, Glenn Jacobs, absolutely looks like a horror movie serial killer. So at least the casting makes sense. Here he plays Jacob Goodnight, a massive psychopath who like to rip the eyes out of his victims. He's introduced in a prologue when two cops arrive at an abandoned house only to find a screaming, bloody woman with her eyes torn out. Goodnight kills one of the cops and cuts the arm off of the other before he is shot and runs away.

Four years later, the one-armed surviving cop is escorting a group of young criminal offenders to a an abandoned hotel. The plan is to have the kids clean up the joint and turn it into a homeless shelter. Guess which maniac serial killer has been holed up at the abandoned hotel for the past four years? Yup, it's our man Goodnight. How nice of the one-armed cop to bring his favorite serial killer a fresh supply of bodies.

Wackiness ensues. There are a bunch of sub-plots. Two of the boys search for the hidden safe of the hotel's previous owners. One of the girls is re-united with her abusive ex-boyfriend, a drug dealer who got her arrested. The childhood backstory of the maniac. None of it really matters. Here we've got our standard slasher film recipe. Mix a bunch of teenaged sinners in with one psychotic killer. Grind.

Goodnight is a brutal killer. He snares his victims with a large metal hook and chain. Dragging them off to do with as he pleases. And what pleases him is ripping out their eyes with his bare hands. Honestly, the death scenes are much more brutal and violent than I would have thought for a WWE Film. I guess this was the period when they were R-Rated rather than PG, as a company.

What's most frightening about this flick is the utter lack of direction and supervision provided by the two adults guards. These kids wander about, do what they want, smoke weed, have sex. Basically anything other than actually cleaning up the hotel like they are supposed to do. Very irresponsible, if you ask me. Don't worry, those two irresponsible adults won't last long.

Nor should you. Skip this one.

Verdant Dude Rating: 1 out of 5 pumpkin ales

2 comments:

Waterlogged Canine said...

Gold dussssssst!

Verdant Earl said...

WLC - It's all about his brother, Stardust, now. He's even weirder.