My notes on Blind, which has screened/streamed at Frightfest.
Give or take an eye-gouging, this is the sort of slow-burn, female-centric suspense item you can find on Channel 5 most afternoons of the week. It’s mostly a languorous soap opera about Hollywood Hills-based actress Faye (Sarah French), who has gone blind after botched laser surgery and is mopey about it … with insets of a crazed stalker in a ‘pretty boy’ mask (Jed Rowen) abusing dolls, creeping around Faye’s isolated home (he seems to have a lair in her basement) in pervy fashion, and occasionally murdering folks who might get between him and the object of his affection.
Much time is spent on Faye chatting with her supportive blind-from-birth pal Sophia (Caroline Williams) and possible love interest Like (Tyler Gallant) – who is mute – or wandering wistfully around her house. It holds back on the Wait Until Dark/See No Evil stalking stuff, making a plot point that Faye doesn’t twig she’s in danger or not alone until very late in the day – hoping that her just sitting there with the silent villain (in creepy mask and blood-spattered white tux) shares her sofa will be scary enough. So, here’s a film with an infallible suspense situation that still fumbles with it.
Performances are okay, but it’s got about enough plot for a short – and the last few seconds before the credits kick in (revealing the film’s full title*) are guaranteed to annoy audiences who have waited a long time for a plot crisis to come about. Scripted by Joe Knetter; directed by Marcel Walz, of the Blood Feast remake and Seed 2.
Here’s Audrey Hepburn in Wait Until Dark
*Full title is a spoiler ….#
Here’s Mia Farrow in See No Evil/Blind Terror
Here’s Jennifer Jason Leigh in Eyes of a Stranger
#Blind Part 1
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