Eye See You (2002) - Movie Review

What do you get when the director of I Know What You Did Last Summer attempts to adapt of psychological thriller novel no one has heard of using an Allstar cast of 90’s actors?

A real piece of shit, that’s what.

Let’s discuss.

Eye See You, or Detox as it was known overseas, is a 2002 psychological thriller brought to us by Jim Gillespie with writers Howard Swindle and Ron Brinkerhoff. Coming off of the smash success of adapting Lois Duncan’s forgotten masterpiece of young adult horror, I Know What You Did Last Summer.

Duncan, a legend in multiple genres, wrote many award winning thrillers for young adults including classics like 1974’s Down a Dark Hall and 1976’s Summer of Fear. She stopped writing thrillers following the 1989 murder of her daughter by alleged serial killer Paul Apodaca. She not only stopped writing the genre, she stopped supporting her back catalog. Thus, her books faded into the background just as R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series rose to prominence. Duncan’s books were edgy and dark at a time when young adult fiction was mostly happy fluff. They were ahead of their time, especially IKWYDLS—which Gillespie adapted into the 1997 hit film.

Following this success, he could have made anything. He was the next hot thing in directing. With his biggest success being an adaptation of a brilliant story most had forgotten—why not follow it up with another adaptation of a little known book?

Little did he know how big a mistake that would be.

Eye See You is based on the 1999 novel by Howard Swindle called Jitter Joint and was intended on being the first in a series of films based on the writer’s Jeb Quinlin series. As this film never received a sequel, it’s obvious that it failed—but how hard it failed is almost spectacular considering the parties involved.

Yes, Gillespie, Swindle, and Brinkerhoff were and still are relative nobodies, the cast assembled would have been incredible to witness were they not saddled with a threadbare script, terrible story telling, and awful editing and continuity.

The film focuses on Jake Malloy, an FBI special agent in charge of an investigation into a series of murders. 9 decorated police officers tortured and murdered in 3 months. The killer poses their corpses in submissive positions after removing their eyes. The killer never leaves evidence, never messes up. Malloy is clueless to stop him, a fact intensified when the killer murders one of Malloy’s life-long friends and shortly thereafter murders his Fiancé. The killer is quickly cornered by police, but he kills himself before he can be apprehended. There’s no reason why he did his crimes, no explanation for the horror he wreaked. The trauma sends Malloy spiraling to the bottom of the bottle and eventually he attempts suicide. When he’s confined to a remote mental asylum specifically for law enforcement officers, it looks like he’s found a place to heal. Unfortunately, Malloy’s nightmares have just begun. As his fellow patients begin to turn up dead, Malloy begins to feel that old itch. The sensation of being watched, of being one step behind. Has Malloy finally lost it, or is the killer long thought dead still stalking him from beyond the grave? Find out in tonight’s feature, Eye See You.

Or don’t.

This is a film that should be studied in film school to show people how not to make film.

I can’t speak for the novel, but the script for this film feels like it was written on construction paper in dull crayons. The dialogue is bland, unoriginal, and derivative. It’s obvious the filmmakers were attempting to emulate other great 90’s films like 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs and 1995’s Seven—but they missed all the major points those films hit.

Starting with the killer.

There’s the first problem. The killer has no name. There’s no hook to draw the audience in. For a killer as successful and prolific as this guy is supposed to be, no one ever calls him by a code name. Silence of the Lambs had Buffalo Bill and Hannibal the Cannibal while Seven had John Doe. I don’t think there’s a single line in this film coining a name for the killer. There’s also no explanation for his crimes, no rhyme or reason. The only semblance of explanation is that the serial killer was killing sex workers, but then switched to cops when the cops started investigating the murders.

No, that’s not my terrible writing—that’s pretty much how the dialogue for the scene went. The killer is mad at the cops for attempting to stop him from murdering women and that’s it. 0 other motivation or explanation is given.

Then there’s the choice of Stallone as the lead. Sylvester Stallone is many things, but a dramatic—cerebral leading man is not it. He can be great, look at his recent run in Tulsa King for example. When given good writing and a character that fits his strengths—he can be electric. However, when given a script that might as well be written on soiled toilet paper…

Well, you can imagine the results.

It’s a shame too. If the cast had been shuffled, this could have be salvaged. I mean look at this cast!

Jeffery Wright, Kris Kristofferson, Dina Meyer, Charles S. Dutton, Tom Berenger, Courtney B. Vance, Sean Patrick Flannery, Robert Patrick, Polly Walker, and Stephen Lang are all in this movie! That's a cast that looks better in hindsight sure, but still. The amount of talent on this cast is unbelievable. If you remove Stallone and replace him with say Vance or Patrick—this movie is instantly forty percent better.

I salute all of those actors who had to take the bullet for Stallone’s ego here, because his finger prints are all over this film. Stallone is notorious for demanding rewrites, changes, and in some cases full on story overhauls in order to make himself look good. This is obvious even if you didn’t know that this film finished shooting in 1999 and was then shelved for 3 years and then dumped onto DVD. I mean for Chrissakes, not only was the main character’s name changed, his profession changed too. In the books, he’s a policy detective in Dallas, TX. In this he’s a federal agent who used to be a Boston cop—I think?

There’s nothing in this film that reflects any specific city or culture. It’s just bland and gray. Especially once Malloy gets to the modern art asylum that looks like it’s in the Black Forest of Germany more than Wyoming where it’s stated to be. There’s literally no color in the film from that point on. It’s just dull and gray. I get that the filmmaker most likely was attempting to Soderburgh to movie with dulling the colors to illustrated the desperate and lonely struggle of addiction, but it comes off as lazy and boring.

Which honestly should have been the title.

Don’t watch this movie.

Please.

You deserve better than wasting 96 minutes of your life on this.

I never knew 96 minutes could feel like 4 hours—but Eye See You has me convinced.

If you need to punish yourself, it’s streaming free on Amazon Prime Video.