Written and directed by Michael D. Coffey, a recent college graduate house-sitting for her ailing grandfather finds herself caught in a deadly cat-and-mouse game with thieves who become haunted by something supernatural protecting her in the mysterious mansion. Starring: Kushi Beauchamp, RJ Mitte, Maximiliano Hernández, Chris Bylsma, Addison Landes, Kevin Willmott, Jamie Addison, Tori Kilkenny and Guy Messenger.
One Eye Open opens in a very familiar fashion, giving viewers a taste of the trouble that is to come before taking things back to the beginning. It then switches to a rather strange, first person view tour of the home, with slightly shuddery camera work, which throws off the tone. It’s that sort of touch which One Eye Open does struggle with throughout, missing a sharper eye or a darker perspective.
The concept itself is a decent one, with Samantha (Kushi Beauchamp) finding herself facing a band of home invaders while unknown supernatural forces within the house try to protect her. However, that is massively hindered by the writing’s tendency to become overtly sentimental, it strikes more the tone of a romance or drama, than a thriller and far from a horror. That’s one of the key things holding back One Eye Open, it can’t build the necessary tension and suspense, especially when it develops slowly to begin with, when the atmosphere is too light. It also feels as though the family story is never really explored, which ends things on a flat note.
With that strangely lighter tone, the performances do struggle to make a big impact, and surprisingly it’s the home invaders, played by RJ Mitte, Chris Bylsma and Tori Kilkenny who do most of the heavy lifting here. The three of them do a terrific job of trying to inject fear into One Eye Open, when they’re in the focus, that’s the closest the film gets to being what it wants to be, but without them, it falls short.
One Eye Open doesn’t feel truly committed to the type of film that it wants to be. You can see that it’s going for a horror-thriller mix with the unfolding events, but the tone and atmosphere never quite manage to match that. Every element isn’t working together cohesively to build the tension and suspense it’s crying out for. It’s reminiscent of the 2000s school of horror, and not necessarily in a good way. The direction and cinematography don’t have a great deal to offer, it’s slow to develop and makes one very strange song choice to sit atop the end credits.
