Guillermo del Toro has often been presented/named as a horror director/producer... Usually, though, the films he is involved with are more like "dark fairy tales" with sympathetic monsters and... that kind of boring stuff.
This movie (which he has produced) is not like that. It actually starts as a decent mystery/thriller which offers very good scares and deals with one of the most tragic conditions a human being could ever face: the loss of one's eyesight. The directors ideas for the depiction of blindness are very very good, and the viewer can actually feel the character's helplessness. And that's about all that's good about the film.
Once the plot starts to unravel, the story sinks itself into absurdity, providing us with a villain driven by one of the least realistic motives ever. To top that we are faced with some soap opera situations/twists that are equally non-believable. Yes, in Norman Bate's case, this kind of ideas was very interesting, but after the repetition of those models for the 1000th time, to be honest - we've had enough of them. Also, visually it is one of those "modern" movies that take place in a world with only three to five colors, ranging from blue to (hardly) green. Finally, the movie closes with a repetition one of the most used movie clichés, i.e. the "using camera flash in the dark in order to see" scare...
The verdict: when this movie tries to be original, it resorts to ideas that defy logic completely, and when it incorporates classic patterns, it does it in a way that is completely uninspired.
This movie (which he has produced) is not like that. It actually starts as a decent mystery/thriller which offers very good scares and deals with one of the most tragic conditions a human being could ever face: the loss of one's eyesight. The directors ideas for the depiction of blindness are very very good, and the viewer can actually feel the character's helplessness. And that's about all that's good about the film.
Once the plot starts to unravel, the story sinks itself into absurdity, providing us with a villain driven by one of the least realistic motives ever. To top that we are faced with some soap opera situations/twists that are equally non-believable. Yes, in Norman Bate's case, this kind of ideas was very interesting, but after the repetition of those models for the 1000th time, to be honest - we've had enough of them. Also, visually it is one of those "modern" movies that take place in a world with only three to five colors, ranging from blue to (hardly) green. Finally, the movie closes with a repetition one of the most used movie clichés, i.e. the "using camera flash in the dark in order to see" scare...
The verdict: when this movie tries to be original, it resorts to ideas that defy logic completely, and when it incorporates classic patterns, it does it in a way that is completely uninspired.