Reviewed by: Carl Lyon

Much like many of its mentally disturbed villains, the slasher genre has a split personality: it's perhaps one of the easiest genre of films to put together from a technical standpoint, but it's also one of the most difficult sort of films to get right. Despite the mind-bogglingly simple formula (one part murderer, 6-8 parts potential victims, shake vigorously for 90 minutes), the genre has produced only a few truly notable examples, with the rest ranging from unremarkable to atrocious. The atrocious, at least, have the hope of being remembered for their awfulness, becoming fish stories for movie buffs to trade back and forth. The unremarkable films, however, suffer the fate of being forgotten, of being left on the shelf to collect dust and disinterested looks.

Which brings me to See No Evil, another recent attempt to capture that elusive slasher magic on celluloid. It tells the story of Jacob Goodnight, played by WWE wrestler Kane, a towering wall of psychotic muscle who somehow manages to finesse his mammoth fingers into his victims' eye sockets to pluck out their peepers for his formaldehyde-soaked collection. Goodnight has spent the last few years holed up in the abandoned Blackwell Hotel, recovering from a bullet he took to the head years before. Fate intervenes however, and sends Jacob an octet of eager teenage victims (in this case, youth convicts who do volunteer work in exchange for a reduced sentence), as well as the cop who shot him all those years before. Jacob, of course, takes full advantage of this serendipitous moment, hoping to add a few more ocular trophies to his mantel.

What See No Evil does right is readily apparent. Kane is perfectly cast as Goodnight, a hulking man-mountain whose presence on screen is truly striking. Despite being a barely fleshier Jason Voorhees, Kane plays Goodnight on all the right notes, and makes himself one of the high points of the movie. While not a particularly original character from a visual or emotional standpoint (near-mute giant with a religious angle to his crimes taking cues from a traumatic childhood), Kane takes his moderately cliché role and runs with it, with strangely satisfying results. The filthy Blackwell Hotel in which the movie takes place hides a gorgeous art-deco sensibility underneath its filth, offering lots of little nooks and crannies for Jacob to pop in and out of (which he does quite often, almost like a 7-foot tall trapdoor spider) and lots of spooky peril for our group of cadavers-to-be. Unfortunately, this oddly likable villain and beautiful set are saddled with eight of the least likable characters I've had the displeasure of watching. When your film's ?heroes? are a bunch of cons without a single twinge of guilt for the petty crimes they have committed, planning their escape from the Blackwell Hotel (where they inexplicably wear civvies instead of their prison jumpsuits), fighting amongst themselves, and just being overall rotten folks, it's definitely in your best interests to dispatch them quickly and brutally, as opposed to letting the audience get to know them better and upset the delicate balance that these movies need in order to truly succeed. These movies are about tension, and the fact that you could care less about these people, coupled with Goodnight's Jack-In-The-Box act make the few scares come across as cheap and obvious.

Presented in its native 1.78:1 aspect ratio, See No Evil is certainly a great looking DVD, with sharp, detailed scenes and the muted color palette always staying clean and accurate. Audio is a beefy 5.1 surround mix, leveled perfectly and sounding razor-sharp. Extras include a stable of featurettes on the making of the film, audience reactions, reactions from fellow WWE Superstars, a retrospective on Kane's character in the WWE (a truly confusing watch for a non-fan like myself), commentary with several key members of the cast and crew, and more.

An uneven script and the previously mentioned flawed characters proved to be the true downfall of the movie. The potential for a sequel (the movie managed to double its meager 8 million dollar budget in theaters) is there, and potentially welcome, as long as there is a stronger story to cash in on its intriguing potential and memorable villain.