Our eyes are the windows to the world. They are one of our most vital senses, and losing our vision is, in turn, probably one of every persons’ biggest fears. That is why the Spanish horror thriller Julia’s Eyes is one of the spookiest film concepts to come out in recent history.
Written by Oriol Paulo and Guillem Morales (who also directs the picture), the visionary tale twists and turns as our protagonist, Julia Levin (Belén Rueda), struggles with the recent suicide of her sister Sara (also played by Rueda). Sara was blind and Julia is dealing with the same issue of macular degeneration – with her recently having had two spells that have dropped the quality of her vision by twenty percent. Something does not sit right with the saddened woman, despite urging from her partner Isaac (Lluís Homar) that she should just mourn her sister’s passing. Yet, Julia has a weird sense that there is a near invisible presence following her just out of sight and also believes that her sister may have been murdered.
As she investigates, numerous signs lead her to a more concrete and affirmative answer. She pilgrimages her sister’s final footsteps, following a rope to a next door neighbour, journeying across town to a vision clinic, as well as taking a vacation to a romantic hotel where Sara stayed just prior to her death. Each one of the locations gives her a new piece of information (with her stop at the hotel leading her to discover that her sister had just had restorative eye surgery). As Julia is preparing to depart the vacation spot, the janitor approaches her with news of a man who lives in the shadows and is so nondescript that he is all but invisible to the average person; he also warns her that he senses a dangerous human being. The lady is given a key that her sister supposedly hid under the bed before she left the hotel, adding to the mystery. Though this newfound discovery pushes her on, the police, as well as her husband, do not believe her unsubstantiated observations.
Julia’s eyes continue to fade over the course of her investigations until she is completely blind (following a shocking death) – putting her in an extremely vulnerable state. She undergoes the same eye surgery as her sister, which leaves her with a large gauze-like bandage over her eyes for the foreseeable future. By way of brilliant film making, we see no faces following her reparative treatment. We are like Julia, basically blind to our surroundings. We see waists, feet, backs and shadows, yet are in the dark as to who is actually taking care of or visiting her. Any one of them could be the spectre-like figure that has been stalking her.
Julia’s Eyes is a tense roller coaster of a ride. Produced by horror maestro Guillermo del Toro, the film spooks and ensnares our senses much like many of del Toro’s iconic films. Morales uses simple concepts to create his nightmarish world, with vision loss and a very human monster hiding in the deepest, darkest shadows of the night being two immensely horrifying ideas. There are so many freakish scenes it is hard to highlight just a few. Some simply give you the creeps, like when Julia realizes that the hand on her shoulder following her sister’s burial ceremony was not that of her husband’s, while others are more frightening, like the final climactic reveal. There are others that straddle the middle, such as when Julia hunts down the mysterious figure in the dark deserted halls of an old eerie basement.
Julia’s Eyes is a dark, spooky and atmospheric movie that will give you goose bumps. It plays on our most basic fears and though it has a few gory moments, it mostly uses its setting, strong story, superior camera work as well as cinematographic shadow and light to give us the chills. The characters are also rich in depth, yet it is Belén Rueda who steals the show, once again putting forth a masterful performance (much like in the spectacular 2010 motion picture The Orphanage) which drives the movie forward through its serpentine twists and turns. It has always been said that the eyes are the window to our soul; check this film out as it will open your eyes to a new universe in the realm of horror.