Julia's sight fails to assist her...
A few years ago, Spanish-speaking horror was the hot topic. Guillermo del Toro led the way with his twisted fairytales The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth, sparking the creativity of young directors the world over. The result was a wave of terrific and terrifying films, such as The Orphanage and Rec, that broke through the language barrier, much in the same way as Almodovar and Iñárritu with their social commentaries, to capture global success.
But of late, that momentum has slowed to a crawl. Rec‘s follow-up had some merit, but Paranormal Activity and its ilk have stolen the horror baton and run away with it. So it is with the great weight of expectancy that Julia’s Eyes gets an international release to redress that balance.
And so we hope that the ‘Guillermo Del Toro presents…’ credit falls into the same category as ‘Quentin Tarantino presents Hero’ or ‘… Hostel’ rather than offering dubious auspices that come from Señor Del Toro having better things to do than direct but still looking for a paycheck between proper projects.
Veteran actress Belén Rueda (The Orphanage, The Sea Inside) is Julia, a woman who, like her sister before her, is losing her sight to a degenerative disease. When her sister, Sara (Rueda again), is found hanged in her basement, little things tell Julia that this was no suicide. But there is much Julia doesnt know about her sister (they hadn’t spoken for 6 months) and much she is about to find out.
Unfortunately for the audience, there is no doubt to play on here (missing, to my mind, a major opportunity), because one very big thing lets us know that Sara’s death was no suicide – the huge boot that kicks away the stool from under her, shown clearly in the first scene.
The killer reveals himself to a blind Julia...
And when Julia’s Eyes changes gears for the fianle, that which seemed too far-fetched is blown out of the water with the sort of enthusiastic operatics that might have been effectively chilling were some of the cinema audience not audibly laughing at the screen. A film that anchors itself in the realities of blindness and the very human fear of darkness suddenly loses all subtlety.
Despite this oddly disjointed ending, Julia’s Eyes remains a worthy addition to the Spanish-speaking horror/thriller canon. Belén Rueda is brilliant again in the main role, making a double bill of this film and The Orphanage a great double feature for any arthouse cinema. Keeping her head while losing her sight, our heroine keeps us on stable ground throughout, guiding us to a satisfying if silly finale. Morales has a visual flair in his story-telling that will pierce your retinas (in the final scenes in particular) and his script, while messy, has enough invention to feel fresh. While it doesn’t quite herald a new vision for Spanish horror, Julia’s Eyes is worth a look.
