Reviewed by Ben Begley

The Eye 3 is the third, obviously, in the hugely successful horror film series by the Pang Brothers.  If you haven’t heard of these guys they rock! But more on the directors in a moment, let’s get down to the film at hand.  The plot is about a group of friends on a tour who see an accident and a dead body, this creeps them out, so they do what any teens would do when they go back to their secluded house: they tell ghost stories.  Most of which are ridiculous and obviously made up, but then one of them tells a story about a mysterious book that spells out ten ways to see ghosts.  So once again, they do what any spooked teenagers would do and they decide to follow these steps and one by one they get picked off and the mayhem and scares, mixed in with random laughs, ensues.  The tone of the film feels a little unbalanced, but I guess that’s because I did not expect it to be even remotely comedic and it is.  It’s kind of a spoof of the other two films, but not fully realized as a comedy because there still are some genuine creepy moments to it. 

The film’s shaky genre bending may be too much for American audiences to handle and most people are better off just watching the original two and leaving this one for die hard Pang Brothers fans.  The acting is also really not that great, which happens very often in Asian horror films when young pop stars are cast, but I guess it’s the same for our teen horror films.  Maybe it’s an international prerequisite to making horror films with people in their 20’s or younger, everyone in it must be a bad actor and occasionally we’ll let a mediocre one slip by, damn those diamonds in the rough!!  So the acting is lackluster and the plot more comedic than scary, but it still somehow finds a way to be very entertaining.

The first two films I think are stellar.  I really love the original Eye and think it’s got a creepy tone and has a really redemptive and cool ending that is rarely seen in horror films.  The Eye 2 follows in the same suit, leading us to make up all these terrible reasons for why the ghost is around this pregnant woman only to find out (SPOILER WARNING!!) that this is the natural order of life and how spirits are reincarnated.  Both films have really deep stuff behind them and are pretty darn well thought out for a “creepy-girls-with-long-black-hair” ghost movie, but there’s an even better film that the Pang Brothers made called Recycle about a woman who gets trapped in her own book about all the things people waste and take for granted, she is haunted by a world of the forgotten.  This film is really amazing and my synopsis barely does it justice.  These guys are responsible for other really high-octane action films like their debut Bangkok Dangerous (soon to be a remake by them with Nicholas Cage).  So all in all, for my money 9/10 times the Pang Brothers deliver the goods and then some.  With The Eye 3 they deliver their unique style, but in a way that most people aren’t expecting, which upon repeat viewings may make the film even better for that reason.

FEATURES

-A short featurette on the lore behind the “10 ways to see ghosts”

-Brief making of featurette as well

Not much stunning stuff here.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The Eye 3 may not be what viewers expect, but it’s still fun.  If you love Asian horror/comedy films and are used to the genre bending, check it out.  If you’re more cut and dry with your film viewing, then I would suggest sticking to the first two.  Either way you have to watch them in order, it’s just a question of which fans will omit this one.  I liked it, but I didn’t love it as much as its predecessors.