Respond to these rapid questions in our I See You quiz and we will tell you which I See You character you are. Play it now.
The awkward drama “I See You” strives arduously for the first 40 plodding minutes to hold your interest. As if he had hit the end of a bungie cord, a boy riding his bike through the woods is suddenly yanked into the air. Soon after, he is added to the list of other children who have gone missing in the tiny town where Detective Greg Harper (Jon Tenney) is working to piece together clues (like a green Swiss Army knife) before more disappearances occur.
On a smaller scale, something even more scandalous is going on: His wife Jackie (Helen Hunt) has lately cheated on him, and she repeatedly brings it up in terse exchanges with Greg or their moody teenage boy, Conor. (Judah Lewis). It’s tense to the point where odd events, like Greg getting trapped in the closet while pursuing the family hamster or the silverware disappearing from the kitchen drawers, seem like diversionary events. But despite how overt and obvious these developments are, they ultimately amount to a shoddy compilation of Blumhouse-lite scenes that, if it weren’t so unfunny, would be a parody.
This is the product of director Adam Randall, who is less of an inventive storyteller than a poor salesman with this script from Devon Graye. The music by Philipp Blaubach emphasizes the significance of each of the script’s ominous visuals and sounds like a steel mill in space. Randall has a comical bounty of drone shots that swoop around locations and occasionally appear as though they are going to crash into the Harper house. “I See You” enjoys using these elements to hint that a paranormal power could be present in the background before cutting away suddenly, as it does just before displaying its title card. However, it does little to increase the likelihood that Something Scary is occurring and instead just adds to the dreary atmosphere.
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Because Graye’s screenplay is more interested in using the affair to accentuate conflict between the mother, father, and son than in exploring the affair itself, “I See You” also has a shaky dramatic foundation. Both dialogue and the actors’ one-dimensional portrayals of anger or shame make it difficult to lend it any nuance. Hunt’s skills are ultimately not utilized by this film’s horror components, but rather by its crude assertions about how adultery could ruin a home.
I See You Quiz
All of this ends up being pretty misleading advertising, and “I See You” does itself a disservice by not disclosing its true nature until halfway through. Therefore, it is not a problem for me to clarify that this is a house invasion story rather than a supernatural one. The narrative then resumes its disturbances in the night from the viewpoint of two unkempt adolescents, Mindy (Libe Barer) and the much more disorderly Alec. (Owen Teague). They participate in “phrogging,” a real-life term for when criminals stay in a stranger’s house uninvited and undetected. Their point of view is first revealed in video they recorded while breaking into the Harpers’ upper-middle class house one morning just before the garage door closes. As it repeatedly brings up the idea of individuals invading your space from just outside your peripheral vision, a slight air of creepiness develops. It’s a sinister notion and one of the few solid ones in the picture.
Also, you will find out which character are you in this I See You quiz.
But with changes that I won’t reveal, even this strategy for bringing a once-daydreamy horror back into your most private areas becomes clumsy and weak. The identity of “I See You’s” central monster changes along with the mode, but the revelation results from a highly staged shift in POV. As someone who had to slog through the first half, the backstory that ties everything together feels satisfying, but it falls short of the story’s intended parameters of being unsettling and tricky. “I See You” boasts a difficult to predict conclusion during its tedious first act, which not many movies can claim, but the film employs cheap tricks to obtain that distinction.
For more personality quizzes check this: Breeding Difficulty Quiz.
