Title: The Child’s Eye
Directed by: Oxide Pang Chun & Danny Pang
Starring: Rainie Yang, Elanne Kwong and Shawn Yue
Running time: 97 min, Rated R
A group of friends on vacation in Thailand are suddenly stranded due to the airport closing because of a violent protest demonstration. They find a dilapidated hotel where the manager’s own violent past literally haunts the guests who stay there.
So the manager’s wife apparently was mentally disturbed and suddenly dies when her husband tries to thwart her attempt to kill their deformed baby, and now she haunts the hotel, stealing guests in order to make a new family. The deformed kid looks like it was born with a dog’s face and that’s the creepiest visual effect in the whole movie. The ghost makeup was also very good; it didn’t look cheap or overly fake. Apparently this was meant to be a 3D film, as was hyped up in the behind the scenes interview bonus feature of the DVD, but unfortunately that aspect wasn’t provided on the DVD release. The acting by Ranie Yang and Jo Kuk was decent, and the English dub option was a nice additional selection, however the voice actors didn’t really capture the intensity of most scenes.
I was sort of confused by the ending with the dramatic littering, but it was a decent horror film. The directors really know how to build tension in a scene to make it scarier than it really is. This movie makes me want to go to Thailand and have some of that Trotter Rice, but that ghost chick’s gotta sit alone.
Total rating: C
Reviewed by: JM Willis