Editorials
‘My Little Eye’ – 2002’s Nihilistic Commentary on Reality Entertainment [Horrors Elsewhere]
The 1980s cultivated a sense of paranoia — all sides of the media played into the idea of being spied on. Then something happened in the following decades where people suddenly wanted to be watched, especially on a large scale. From reality television to vlogs to online influencers, exhibitionism and voyeurism have taken on new forms and meanings. In response to the changing times, the horror genre found a way to both comment on and make itself a part of the trend. Commercial attempts like Halloween: Resurrection touched on the concept’s dark side, but the underbelly of this subgenre is where criticism is at its most scathing. And no other horror movie lambastes the reality boom quite like My Little Eye.
While people today are by and large less inhibited when it comes to broadcasting their lives online, the five characters in Marc Evans’ 2002 movie were initially reluctant to join a reality webcast. The $1-million cash prize, however, changed their minds. Taking a page out of The Real World, My Little Eye shadows five strangers cloistered away in a remote house for six months. So long as no one leaves during that time, the money is theirs. It’s only in the last week when the contestants realize there’s something amiss about the show they signed up for and the mysterious producers behind the surveillance cameras.
Shot primarily in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the British production feels like a long ways away from civilization. The neglected state of the house and the numerous animal heads on the wall give off a subtle impression of death. In any other horror movie, the characters would only enter a place like this as a last resort; here they willingly stay for half a year. The isolated setting is crucial to the tense and uncomfortable mood of My Little Eye. Right from the beginning the audience feels trapped with the characters, who are suffering from cabin fever.
The cast of relatively unknown actors helps pull off a story of this kind, but their performances are more scripted than natural. According to the director, improvisation and spontaneity were hard to come by on set. Yet what ultimately gives this some verisimilitude are the production values — or really the lack thereof. This $3-million budgeted movie achieved its artificial low-tech aesthetic by using half a dozen digital cameras to record everything. The unadorned appearance pushes for authenticity as well as improves the efficacy of the more shocking moments. Although My Little Eye isn’t necessarily a found-footage movie, the goal here is the same. The invasive and voyeuristic camerawork is intended to make audiences think everything is real until told otherwise.
It’s standard for reality shows to create “drama” by introducing unexpected elements. And after months of letting the cast live somewhat comfortably, the webcast’s producers unleash a slow but steady trickle of unsettling events to shake things up. An ominous crow finds its way into the house, a cast member’s grandfather supposedly died while he was away, and someone wakes up next to a bloody hammer on her pillow. While the whole experience is meant to be an exercise in realism, the characters chalk these events up to the producers toying with them for clicks and views. Because as much as anyone likes the idea of reality entertainment, there is such a thing as being too real.
The producers’ meddling only worsens as the six-month period comes to a close. An unexpected visit from a supposedly random passerby, played by Bradley Cooper, is a flagrant metaphor for how these shows use people for their own pleasure and benefit. And the twisting of the truth to cause more friction leads to the webcast’s first but not last fatality. The reality shows of today are tame when compared to their ancestors; producers have had to learn from both their own and others’ mistakes. When this movie was first released, though, reality TV was still in the process of finding a balance between entertainment and exploitation. Meanwhile, David Hilton and James Watkins’ story darkly imagines the worst level these reality shows could reach if they were left unchecked.
The widely covered and sensationalized O. J. Simpson murder trial is thought to be the beginning of modern reality TV, among other things now considered permanent fixtures in today’s pop culture. My Little Eye alludes to the same morbid fascination with both instant celebrities and death as a spectator sport, though the execution is absolutely more extreme and aggressive to avoid any ambiguity. It’s that same harsh characteristic that influenced the distributor, Universal, to pass on a theatrical release in the United States. Of course their decision came after viewing a rough cut in the days following 9/11. Sadistic horror movies wouldn’t become common to see in theaters until a few years later.
My Little Eye is a vicious send-up of a once-burgeoning and now-ubiquitous mode of entertainment. Once it’s over the hurdle of intentional drudgery to imitate the slow parts of most reality TV, Marc Evans’ movie explodes into a denouement rife with nihilism and violence. Horror has since made such displays of brutality and bleakness into a routine or expectation, but even in light of that fact, there is still something to be said about how My Little Eye punishes people’s ambition and gullibility.
Horrors Elsewhere is a recurring column that spotlights a variety of movies from all around the globe, particularly those not from the United States. Fears may not be universal, but one thing is for sure — a scream is understood, always and everywhere.
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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