Film Review 2: Do You See Me // Corbin Timbrook

Do You See Me? You Definitely Don’t Want To…

 Review by: Annie Thompson

          It’s Halloween. A few days before, a young girl starts noticing a mysterious man stalking her, and her friends think she is crazy and imagining the whole thing. You know what film I’m talking about, right? Halloween? Nope—it’s just a terrible remake of the acclaimed Halloween.  Instead of Michael Meyers, the stalker is a killer clown, and instead of Laurie, the victim is an overly-dramatic Hollywood agent, Emily.

            In the past few years, from large cities like Atlanta and Los Angeles to small college towns, cults of creeping clowns took over the streets. I am not surprised that these events inspired someone to make such a horror film, but honestly a group of eighth graders with a camera could have done a better job.

Do You See Me takes place in the city of Los Angeles. The film starts out at night in the middle of the woods. A man is strapped up and the next second gets the skin of his face torn off by a mysterious figure with long dark nails. The low production cost of making this film comes out to play in this scene. The supposed skin that was ripped off of this man’s face looked like a plastic face mask bought at Party City for ninety-nine cents. This establishing scene finishes, and ends up having no correlation to the plot, except to attempt to scare the viewer. It failed.

            A few days before Halloween, buzz swarms around L.A. about cults of killer clowns luring around the area. Emily (Rya Meyers) goes about her daily routine and overhears this information on the radio while in the shower. One day she gets an anonymous text stating, “Do you see me?” This text spooks Emily, but she shakes it off as a silly teenager prank. She then continues to work, not phased by the supposed stalker. These anonymous texts continue. She receives another one while at lunch with her sister and this is when the paranoia starts. She looks up and sees a clown standing across the street staring at her. Of course, as soon as her sister turns around, the clown is gone. Here come the stereotypical stalking horror film plot elements: the score that tries too hard, the this-is-all-in-your-head plot, and of course they throw in a couple shower scenes.

            The score of this film is at first pleasing, then excessively takes over the whole film. They incorporate the typical suspenseful humming score with the twinkling beats of a carousel. As Emily slowly approaches closed curtains and open doors, the score tries too hard to create suspense. I was able to sense exactly when the jump scares would be, and this was almost frustrating in the sense that the editing was too predictable.

            On top of this over the top cinematography, score, and staging, the acting was horrendous. Rya Meyers and the rest of this cast seemed extremely amateur and inexperienced in their acting careers. From her sister’s (Lisa London) unsubtle eye rolls to the uncomfortable police officer’s acting, these stars may want to try this one again. The acting was only a part of the problem. The script was so poorly written that it may not be entirely their fault.

            You know how it goes. The girl pleas for help, and all of her friends and family tell her that it’s just in her head, or just some crazy kid on Halloween messing around; however, what makes a horror film a horror film is that we know that her friends are wrong. The poorly written script broke the number one rule to follow when writing a script: don’t tell your viewers information they already know. It was extremely monotonous hearing the same warning signs over and over again.

            I knew after the first few lines of the film that this was going to be quite a show. I should have followed the three people that walked out of the theater after these first lines. It became quite humorous not only because of the God-awful acting, predictable staging, and try-hard score, but also because of the amount of people exiting the theater. I ended up keeping a tally, and by the end of the film, 19 out of the 25 people in the theater left early. If you want to see a comedy, would recommend Do You See Me. You won’t be hearing screams, but laughter filling the room.

Thriller, Horror

Run Time: 1hr28min

Director: Corbin Timbrook

Writers: Harel Goldstein, Charles Morris Jr.

Stars: Rya Meyers, Phillips Boyd, Lisa London, Jim Fitzpatrick