Receiving calls from neighbours about a woman screaming, two police officers investigate an abandoned house. Finding the door open and hearing the screaming woman themselves, one cop questions if they should wait for back-up but officer Williams (Steven Vidler of the SALEM'S LOT remake) will have none of that nonsense. Entering the filthy, blood stained darkened house they perform a sweep and find a terrified young woman, her eyes have been plucked out. Out of nowhere an axe wielding leviathan of a man appears, chopping to bits one officer and cutting off the arm of Williams. Gun arm intact Williams first off a shot thinking it a head shot but the brute makes his escape.
Four years later Williams, sporting a prosthetic arm, works as a correction officer. He's taking a co-ed group of juvenile delinquents (amazing how mature they all look) to the Blackwell Hotel. The hotel has been abandoned for decades after the owner Blackwell died in a fire on the penthouse floors. Margaret (Cecily Polson), is heading the renovation of the hotel to turn it into a homeless shelter. The delinquents, all of whom follow the slasher guide book of behavior for teens, have been offered a reduction of one month of their sentence for three days of clean up work. Little do they know that the hulking brute Jacob Goodnight (WWE star Kane) has set up his slaughter house in the hotel and is on the look out for eyes to pluck.
Instead of condemning the film for its use of slasher film cliches, teens smoking dope and having sex, the unstoppable killer who appears out of nowhere, I'll praise the film for what it did right in a genre that suffocated itself long ago. Porn cum music video cum horror director Gregory Dark does a commendable job behind the camera on the Australian shot, set bound film. The camera flourishes he added were appreciated in what is just another low budget slasher. I don't know if this was Kane's or Dark's or writer Dan Madigan's idea but I did get a kick out of how when Jacob carried his prey back to his lair he unknowingly was slamming the body into a wall or doorway like a big dopey kid thoughtlessly swinging a rag doll around; a bit of shtick in an otherwise dry film. Without giving too much away, I liked how the jerk of the group turns out to be the one who saves the remaining would be victims (shades of John Russo's MIDNIGHT).
If this was still the 80's and I was still a teenager I'd be praising the film a lot more. But all in all SEE NO EVIL is the same scenario I've seen numerous times over the decades, just without the grain.
** out of ****
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