What if one day you find you cannot wake up from your nightmare? You remind yourself that ‘this is just a dream,’ but somehow the dream feels more palpable than reality. Colin Tilley’s feature debut film, Eye for an Eye, starring Whitney Peak, is a hypnotic, loopy trip. The gory, lucid visuals will drag you into a world you don’t want to belong to. The eeriness will keep you on your toes; the deeper you go into this scary rabbit hole, the more the branching tendrils will get a hold of you, and you’re exposed to the monster lying underneath all the madness. I have to admit the premise didn’t impress me at first; childish lore about a monster/entity punishing bullies is a familiar horror trope, but as the film progressed, I figured I was in for a visual treat.
Anna moved into her grandma’s house after losing both her parents to a car accident. Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, the shift to a quaint suburb was not quite the dream, but Anna had no choice but to adapt. She was yet to graduate from high school, and she figured, as drastic as the change may be, she’d make it work. Anna was greeted by her grandma, May Roberts, as soon as she arrived at what was to become her new home. May had lost her vision fifty years back, but as soon as she traced Anna’s face with her fingers, she knew she looked just like her daughter. She familiarized Anna with the rules of her house, and she strictly mentioned that she enjoyed her privacy and didn’t want Anna prying in her room. Anna settled into the dusty, abandoned room her grandma assigned her and turned to the old photographs of her parents for comfort. The laid-back suburb didn’t really excite Anna, apart from the woods that called to her. May advised her not to go there, but her curiosity knew no bounds. She stumbled upon an old dock, and she met a couple of local youngsters there. Although she hadn’t planned to stay, they asked her to have a beer with them. Anna was happy to have found company; at least there was something for her to look forward to. But soon she discovered that they were bullies who preyed on the vulnerable. Will Anna stop them, or will she choose to be a silent spectator? Anna’s decision leads to a series of events in her life.
The characters in Eye for an Eye seem to be straight out of the Get Out universe (though thematically vastly different). They hide secrets, their behavior is erratic, and there’s always more than meets the eye. The reality was twisted and bizarre, and it almost felt like Anna was the only one who belonged to the real world as we know it. And not just thematically, but even visually, you get the idea that the suburb was wrapped around the fingers of the mysterious figure—Mr. Sandman. The terrifying characters and sinister surroundings further add to the horror punch.
The film marks the debut of music video director Colin Tilley. He shows restraint at first, but the minute the dreams turn into nightmares and you gradually approach the grand ending, you’ll get an idea of the school of filmmaking he has come from—punchy, raw, and trippy. The use of collage-style animation to convey Mr. Sandman’s backstory was particularly effective, adding a distinct visual texture that complemented the narrative’s surreal tone.
The weakest link in Eye for an Eye is its plot. It lacks the depth that you would want in a horror film. The backstory is pretty shallow, and if you think about it, the film is just about plain old jealousy and revenge. But what Eye for an Eye lacks in plot complexity, it makes up for in the narrative. The way the film gradually unfolds—first familiarizing us with the sinister neighborhood, then introducing us to the problematic side of Anna’s new friends, and finally revealing to us the darkness that resides within the people Anna calls her family. The cinematography is impressive. One of the memorable scenes from the film is when Anna’s grand-aunt, Patty, introduced her to the suburban lore, and the camera swiftly moved from Patty and Anna’s conversation and focused on the surroundings—capturing the branches of a giant tree swinging in the wind, the stillness of the wetland juxtaposed by the rhythmic motion of the short grasses, and a cat relishing a bowl of food. The sound design, the visuals, and the lore altogether created the much-desired eerie atmosphere and positively contributed to building the overall suspense.
At the core of the film is an emotional story encompassing victims of bullying. The drastic, damaging effect words and actions can have on people and how it often results in insecurity and a feeling of extreme hatred is something that the film attempts to showcase. The stylistic endeavor takes precedence over the story, and while it delivers visually, it is not one of those horror films that you’ll remember for the plot. The editing and the visual effects almost make the film feel like a trip gone wrong. Eye for an Eye takes lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis to a whole new level, and you can almost feel the fatigue that the characters experience after days of being unable to sleep peacefully.
Whitney Peak (Gossip Girl, Hocus Pocus 2) delivers a compelling performance as Anna Reeves. She perfectly captures Anna’s loneliness and her quiet suffering as a young woman who’d recently lost her parents and was clueless about her future. May Roberts, portrayed by S. Epatha Merkerson, is not a character you can predict easily. At times she came across as a sweet old woman, but there were moments when she seemed completely sinister, and Merkerson captures this unsettling duality aptly. Patty’s eerie smirk is not easy to forget, all thanks to Golda Rosheuvel!
Compared to contemporary horror, Eye for an Eye takes a more traditional route. The film thematically leans heavily on overused horror cliches, but its real focus, and perhaps the most effective element, is its surrealness. Considering the kind of shift we’re witnessing in the horror genre, I don’t think Eye for an Eye is groundbreaking, but it’s one of those films that you don’t really have to put your mind into. You are expected to simply enjoy the experience of stepping in and out of nightmares and scream your lungs out when things get a little too spooky.
