Christina Vidal, Craig Horner, Glen Jacobs

A group of youths from a juvenile corrections facility are assigned to renovate an old hotel over the weekend and end up being terrorized by a crazed serial killer who dwells on the upper floors.

Flixster Users

63% liked it

25,223 ratings

Critics

9% liked it

56 critics

R, 1 hr. 24 min.

Directed by: Gregory Dark

Release Date: May 19, 2006

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DVD Release Date: November 28, 2006

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Flixster Reviews (7,092)


  • April 29, 2009
    "Look into their eyes, can't you see the sin?"


    See No Evil marks the first motion picture to be produced by WWE Films; the newest arm of Vince McMahon's entertainment empire. This dull, generic, exploitative horror movie also marks the big screen debut of Glen

    ...( read more)n Jacobs, better known to wrestling enthusiasts as Kane. As a matter of fact, this routine horror flick functions as a star vehicle for the renowned wrestler. Eager to sucker in the faithful by showcasing Kane's abilities as a tough horror villain, See No Evil is nothing more than a one-note genre offering that comes across as nothing more than a banal collection of gory money shots. Granted, the filmmakers deserve props for infusing this flick with gore galore. Unfortunately, though, the whole falls far beneath the sum of its parts.


    The plot is customary horror tripe: idiot teenagers are systematically massacred by an unstoppable killing machine (whose past is full of abuse to justify his killing spree) until the shrewdest learn to fight back. With a runtime of approximately 80 minutes, character development is at a minimum. Characters are hardly introduced before the slaughtering begins, and it concludes with a very predictable climax.

    To elaborate: eight juvenile delinquents are transported to a run-down old hotel which will soon be transformed into a shelter for the homeless. In return, the lawbreakers will have a month shaved off their prison sentence. As they commence work and carelessly wander around the decayed premises, a reclusive psychopath (Kane) begins stalking them...offing the criminals one by one.


    This absurdly convenient plot which would trigger winces from even the most forgiving horror aficionados is merely a means to an end, and this end is a bucket-load of blood & guts. The script is extremely problematic, but this was definitely to be expected considering this is screenwriter Dan Madigan's first feature-length effort (he was previously a writer for WWE Smackdown!). It's obvious that the studio was desperately trying to cut costs given that the screenwriter wrote Smackdown episodes and the director's past efforts include Brittany Spears music videos and pornography. Horror used to mesmerise viewers through smartly-drawn characters, witty dialogue and a compelling story (see Scream, Psycho and Halloween). See No Evil contains dumb characters, silly dialogue and a derivative story.


    "This is not what God wants!"


    Logic is completely discarded in Madigan's woeful script. For instance, two of the criminals decide to hunt for a "secret treasure". The safe containing this fortune is apparently so top secret that the map leading to it can be downloaded from the internet!

    Consider the logistics of this ludicrous scenario: either felons are selected to work in this hotel, but they're supervised by only three people, only one of which is an armed officer. Uh huh. The whole concept is also impossible. The hotel was set on fire, yet criminals are brought in to clean it in order for the building to be transformed into a homeless shelter. Never mind that the walls and frames would have to be replaced by professionals, and contractors should have to be hired to fix the electricity as well as the plumbing. How does the electricity still work after the place has been abandoned for 35 years? Why aren't the inmates wearing prison garb? Why would the officers let the delinquents run around unsupervised while they drink shots at the bar?


    See No Evil also suffers from a crippling lack of originality. Slasher movie stock characters pervade the film, and they act in ways recognisable to any horror buff. There are the token ethnics (one black, one Latino), a nerd, a self-righteous lesbian, and four other characters designed to have sex with each other and get high before having their eyeballs torn out by the killer. On top of this, those who are eventually killed are stupid beyond all comprehension. For added measure (and cliché) the correctional officer supervising the miscreants has a past with the murderer - several years prior, he lost not only his hand to the crazed killer, but also his partner, so there's bad blood between them. But wait, the list of clichés grows longer: two characters who depart from the main group in order to have sex are killed (naturally). Oh, and let's not forget that Kane's character is completely impervious to pain, not to mention his back-story is a breeding ground for ridiculous clichés. In addition, the psychopath killer has the ability to be everywhere at once, and characters appear to show up right on time (when it looks like game over for two characters, in comes another to attack Kane and save the day). One should anticipate a certain amount of clichés in a slasher movie, but the filmmakers don't even seem to be trying here. See No Evil is exasperatingly asinine, irritatingly conventional and utterly brainless!


    Director Gregory Dark's résumé is filled with such memorable adult porn films as Hootermania and The Psychosexuals. Bearing this in mind, it may be no surprise that the narrative style of See No Evil is remarkably similar to that of a porno movie. A viewer must endure perfunctory dialogue scenes and wooden acting in between the customary genre sequences. Dark has also helmed music videos; therefore general over-stylisation as well as nauseating, jittery editing is certainly present. The movie is consequently a shambolic blur. Dark can only capture the mayhem with a deplorable assortment of first-year film student trick shots and clichéd flashy editing aplenty. All the flashy edits in the world, however, cannot make up for the bad acting, terrible dialogue, and a plot so predictable that anyone could foresee the outcome by the 10-minute mark.


    Taking place almost completely in dingy hotel hallways, the filmmakers attempt to enliven the humdrum surroundings with preposterously conceived deaths (eyes are plucked out, one character gets a cell phone shoved down their throat, another is eaten by starving dogs, and someone else gets crushed by a safe) and dangerously disrespectful film tributes (the movies of Wes Craven were apparently an influence, which is in turn an official insult). Even the minor usage of CGI is a dud. As Kane falls from a high window to his predictable death, the computer effects look too cartoonish to be taken seriously.


    To make matters worse, none of the actors can act, nor can they convey fear convincingly. When it comes to WWE wrestlers, some can act and others can't. Prior to See No Evil, only Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson had tried his hand at acting with moderately pleasing results. But for the WWE to think that everyone else in their little galaxy will be just as successful is the mother of all delusions of grandeur. Glenn Jacobs, a.k.a. Kane, is not destined for an acting career. He has the acting skills of a fire extinguisher, and has the screen presence of a shaved ape. Granted, Kane only had to grunt, swing an axe, utter a grand total of three words and look confused, but this acting goal is not even achieved. The bald seven-foot wrestler looks more like a modern Tor Johnson, and is so inept he's more cuddly than terrifying. Instead of imposing, he comes across as a junior high school bully with an eye socket fetish.

    The rest of the cast - comprised mostly of Australian actors, as the film was shot in Australia - is almost uniformly bland. It'd be redundant to list all the primary actors involved, as they're all quite forgettable. While viewing the movie, a spectator is merely asked to watch as characters die horrible deaths, which can be rewarding at times since there is no reason to care about them in the first place.


    To its credit, See No Evil does provide a few delightfully gory death scenes and only occasionally does the film plod during its brisk 80-minute duration. Unfortunately, though, this doesn't count for much when the film as a whole is clearly a by-the-numbers moneymaking operation for the WWE. See No Evil is just another illogical, badly-acted exploitation slasher movie that we've all seen many times before.

    The golden days of horror are clearly long behind us. Those were the days when a horror film kept you on the edge of your seat through fear of the unknown. Not only does this awful horror flick leave nothing to your imagination, but it would also seem the director forgot to use his at all. Gregory Dark has set the bar as WWE's first feature film director... It's so unbelievably low that even Uwe Boll would have a hard time limbo-ing under it.


    "I see now..."
  • February 13, 2009
    Fairly standard slasher horror flick with the WWE's Kane in the lead. He's hardly charismatic or easy on the eyes, but damn can he ever swing a bigass hook. Yeah, it's predictable teen fodder, but it kepy my attention for 80 minutes which is more than I can say for many recent ho...( read more)rrors. Or perhaps my attention was mostly held by the very pretty Rachael Taylor. The perfect movie for a shallow, bloodthirsty audience of teens.
  • December 11, 2008
    A group of youths from a juvenile corrections facility are assigned to renovate an old hotel over the weekend and end up being terrorized by a crazed serial killer who dwells on the upper floors.
  • October 17, 2008
    Eight Teens, One Weekend, One Serial Killer.

    A ragtag group of juvenile delinquents assigned the task of cleaning up an abandoned hotel find out just how deadly community service can be when they are stalked by a monstrous, four-hundred-pound maniac with a grudge in direc...( read more)tor Gregory Dark's wrestling-infused survival horror flick. It was a mere four years ago that seven-foot menace Jacob Goodnight (WWE superstar Kane) was shot in the head and left for dead by a local police officer. But Jacob wasn't going down that easy. With a steel plate subsequently attached to his skull and ten razor-sharp fingernails ready to scrape grey matter from the skulls of his victims, Jacob retreated to the abandoned Blackwell Hotel, where he resided in the darkened, rotting hallways while planning his ultimate revenge. As fate would have it, Jacob wouldn't have to go far to satiate his raging bloodlust, though, and as the unsuspecting teens make their way through the crumbling corridors of the once-luxurious inn guided by the very same policeman who fired that misguided bullet years earlier, the notorious killer sharpens his nails, stalks his prey, and prepares for a little payback.

    Review
    Awful movie. Awful acting. Awful script. Awful plot. Awful is a bit redundant, but describes this movie in a nutshell. Every person I went with thought the same. I do enjoy a good slasher/horror movie, but this poorly developed movie would be difficult to enjoy. It is also not one of those movies that so bad it's funny, it's just bad. The situation for the plot is not believable, you don't feel scared at all, or feel sorry for the victims. You just count how many people are left and hope it'll be over soon.
  • June 21, 2008
    Not even worthy of dollar-theater fare.
  • October 29, 2009
    I love Kane. They should have had the Undertaker also.
  • October 29, 2009
    Could have been scarier...hated the name given to Kane as a serial killer/Jason Voorhees type here. Unfortunately they followed the old kill the obnoxious teens routine here, so I didn't care about anyone in the movie. Not too horribly bad for Kane's first movie though.
  • October 24, 2009
    i thought this was going to be really crap..but i kept an open mind with me being a horror/slasher movie ferak...and to be perfectly honest,i quite liked it!! not for the ''acting'' but totally for the blood,guts and gore effect!!
  • October 24, 2009
    What a waste of $$$ spent to rent this garbage
  • October 22, 2009
    So nasty, in a scary way. A good film but really really scary!!

Critic Reviews


May 25, 2006
Ty Burr, Boston Globe

See No Evil is proficient junk, which makes it something of an improvement over recent horrors like An American Haunting. full review

May 23, 2006
Colin Covert, The Minneapolis Star Tribune

It might be hard to imagine a career move that is a step down from directing porn videos, yet Gregory Dark has accomplished just that with his feature-film debut, See No Evil. full review

May 19, 2006
Nick Schager, Slant Magazine

As shallow as a toilet bowl and twice as rank as its usual contents. full review

View more See No Evil reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

Comments


  • llamaspit3838
    September 12, 2009
    i already forgot i watched this movie and i will keep it that way
  • InfamousHugo
    June 14, 2008
    Do people have any sense of judgment ??? I mean, its alright if you like watching wrestling on TV. But because the star of this film is a WWE star as well, doesnt make the film any good. Open your eyes people, stop being so stupid.
  • zombie2409
    May 27, 2008
    Love it, Love Kane....
  • hmczmowski
    January 18, 2008
    i waited so long to see kane in a movie like this. blood, guts, muder! one perfect movie
  • sdssnake
    August 19, 2007
    for all of you that dont like this move i got 2 words for ha!!!S_ck I_
  • Inel2CT
    May 19, 2007
    damn this film is so freakin horror but i like it!
  • fireboysexyboy
    May 2, 2007
    Kane is good or whatever but not that much better than his brother the Undertaker hahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahaha
  • InfamousHu
    April 9, 2007
    Seriously, I can this movei be any good ????
  • anthonykillssoccer
    April 4, 2007
    Omg it Kane from WWE

    that is like Awesome
  • dors1nz
    March 17, 2007
    kane is the best on wwe and now you must see him on SEE NO EVIL he really suit his role when it comes to being evil. So get and watch SEE NO EVIL!!!!!!!!!!

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

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See No Evil Trivia


  • who plays the mustached villain in see no evil hear no evil  Answer »
  • what movie is this tagline from? ''MURDER! The blind guy couldn't see it. The deaf guy couldn't hear it. Now they're both wanted for it.''   Answer »
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  • TAG LINE........The blind guy couldn't see it. The deaf guy couldn't hear it. Now they're both wanted for it!   Answer »

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