JULIA’S EYES

, ()
Directed by:
Written by: ,
Starring: , ,

FILM
Julia’s Eyes
STARRING
Belen Rueda
Lluis Homar
Julia Gutierrez Caba
DIRECTED BY
Guillem Morales
RATING
15
RUNNING TIME
117 Minutes
What is it all about?
A woman suffering from a degenerative sight disease who finds her blind sister Sara hung in her basement. Despite all signs pointing to suicide, Julia decides to investigate what she intuitively feels is a murder case. As her sight gradually deteriorates she uncovers the terrifying truth about Sara’s death, and an invisible man with a mysterious link to Sarah begins to stalk her and leave a series of unexplained deaths in his trail.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLhyz_DtlbQ[/youtube]

   The Hughes Verdict 
Julia’s eyes is like a bad sexual encounter.
For the first forty minutes of this horror/thriller you be having thoughts that what you are having is that this is the best foreplay  you could have ever wished for.  It touches you where no film has gone before, offering you a taste of things to come.  You excited like never before, you can feel the vibes running through your body, its like “oh yes baby I want more!” and  they do, each touch is sublime, you have never had it so good, you sigh at the pleasure, this is it now, its coming and you are ready for the final run in, all you need is the big finish but then it goes all wrong, badly wrong in fact you feel a sudden jolt of emptiness, its like you have been teased to the brink of an orgasm but then they pull away, you feel annoyed and frustrated and then comes the anger, “Is that is?” you think!, and then they leave and what was becoming the best night of your life ends up the most disappointing and instead of a taste of love and affection, all you are left with is a bitter frown that you will never forget!
Julia’s Eyes will leave you breathless for the first forty minutes of its running time.   Believe me, you’ll be scratching your head at the twists and compelling surreal plot and no doubt be trying to work out just what the heck is going on.  I mean how can a serial killer be invisible is one that will have you stumped, because to put it simply,  this film offers brilliant story telling, a fine crafted puzzle that will have you glued to your very seat.
Julia (Belén Rueda) suffers from a rare degenerative sight disease who is distraught when she discovers her twin sister already blind from the disease is found hanged in her basement.  She suspects that its not an open and shut case, something we know is not thanks to a very effective opening scene where we first see the “glimpse” of this serial killer!  For the first half we see Julia trying to to work out what happened but each turn becomes a surreal strange case.
One of the best scenes of the year is when Julia wanders into a shower room where a bunch of blind women are talking about her dead sister.  Now I do not mean to show any disrespect to anyone who is blind but this scene and the imagery is startling, the women and their eyes are frightening and when one of the girls senses that there is someone in the room apart from themselves, the way she stands and walks towards the silent Julia is fantastic.  The dialogue afterwards also sparkles with Hitchcock vibe and  it was here at this point I was sold and beginning to fall in love with this film.
To compare Julia’s Eyes with any other film then Hitchcock does spring to mind but you also see some dark elements of a certain Argento, I can not stress how glorious this film is for a while, we have a simple puzzler of a sister who was on a date with a man yet no one remembers what he looks like.  A serial killer who can just walk away from a murder scene without anyone noticing, who also seems to move the faster than the speed of light and most of all, loves to take pictures from their camera.
All this is happening when Julia is losing her sight.  We get scenes of Julia either running for her life or running after this mystery man and then her sight starts to go, the screen itself closes in and goes dark and this brings a wonderful claustrophobic feel which will have you fighting for air.
Of course I started this review by stating that this film was like bad sex so I guess you are waiting for a huge “but!” to come along.
Without spoiling the film for anyone, the film comes up with a resolution half way in which the police explain to Julia what they think “happened” to her sister!  Now no matter what happened to her before hand, we the viewer are expected to believe that she will takes this and moves on with her life.  This sudden plot change is bonkers and ruins all the good work and instead of the film being a murder mystery it turns into a standard psycho killer genre that died way back when it run to ground in the late 90’s.
I could not believe what I was seeing because the final hour stinks beyond belief.  We have the “unmasking!” which is so bleeding obvious that the killer walks around with “its me!” on their head and all the suspense which was so craftily built up is ruined.
What you can not forgive and I suppose many won’t is the way the writers just ignore all the mysteries that it built up.  Its like the writers just thought “fxxk the viewer!, why bother!” which is a disgrace because it shows a total lack of respect.
How could this killer walk around unnoticed?  How could they have grabbed that laptop with a blink of an eye?  “Who cares, we don’t have to explain everything?” but yes you do, especially as you have created a mystery rich full of ambition.  The film itself is half hour too long and we are left with more muddled plot holes like why does Julia stay in the house where her sister and someone she was close to was killed but above all why would she choose to stay there after she was attacked herself.
From being a promising one night stand it ends up being a disappointing climax and when the credits roll for the final time you left feeling maybe you should have taken home something else, because Julia is one tease that you will need persuading to see again!
Rating: ★★★☆☆

[pt-filmtitle]Julia’s Eyes[/pt-filmtitle]

Avatar photo
About Ross Hughes 532 Articles
Since my mother sat me down at the age of five years of age and watched a little called Halloween, I have been hooked on horror. There is no other genre that gets me excited and takes me to the edge of entertainment. I watch everything from old, new, to cheap and blockbusters, but I promise all my readers that I will always give an honest opinion, and I hope whoever reads this review section, will find a film that they too can love as much as I do! Have fun reading, and please DO HAVE NIGHTMARES!!!!!!

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*