The Amazon Prime Video anthology, Welcome to the Blumhouse, continues this week with two more films to get you into the Halloween spirit. The first film this week is Evil Eye, a story that draws heavily on South Asian myths and the concept of reincarnation. Unfortunately, the production can’t live up to the possibilities of the script, and the film becomes a little silly before all is said and done.
Evil Eye stars Sunita Mani (Netflix’s GLOW) as Pallavi, a young Indian woman living in New Orleans who is hounded by her superstitious mother Usha (Sarita Choudhury) to get married. Mom sets her up on date after date, all the way from India, and Pallavi concedes to make her mother happy. When one of her set-ups is late, she meets Sandeep (Omar Maskati), the perfect man.
Instead of being happy for her daughter, Usha grows suspicious, and begins to wonder if the man could be the reincarnated soul of her own abusive ex-boyfriend who tried to kill her years ago, somehow coming back to torment her. What follows is a weird journey of a mother’s anguish as she knows she’s right, even when her daughter and husband, Krishnan (Bernard White), thinks she’s absolutely bonkers. Yes, Evil Eye is that silly.
The script by Madhuri Shekar fails the production, as it stumbles with subtlety. The red herrings are so in your face, I found myself hoping that a story-turning twist was coming in the third act to set Evil Eye on an entirely different path and outcome, sadly to no avail. There could have been a very terrifying thriller here, but unfortunately, Evil Eye blinks.
Directors Rajeev and Elan Dassani, who are twin brothers, do a decent job of working with what they were given, and the performances are solid, for the most part. The audience feels for Mani’s Pallavi as her mother immediately proves to be overbearing and demanding.
Choudhury revels in the role of mom Usha, taking it over the top more often than not, once again eschewing any thought of subtlety and going full-on bat-$#!t crazy, even when it’s finally revealed that she’s not as insane as we are led to believe.
Evil Eye has a very interesting concept, taking the idea of a maniac that truly can’t be killed and who is resurrected not by magic, or dreams, or whatever it is that keeps Jason Vorhees coming back time and time again, but by superstition and religious belief.
Unfortunately, the film can’t live up to the concept and capitalize on the sheer terror that could come knowing that an evil cannot die. Instead, viewers are left with a movie that is one or two steps away from being a comedy, and maybe this eye should just get some rest.
Evil Eye is part of the Welcome to the Blumhouse anthology on Amazon Prime Video and it is available to stream on October 13.
