Review – ‘I See You’

Strange occurrences plague small town detective Greg Harper and his family as he investigates the disappearance of a young boy. ‘I See You‘ keeps twisting its story to keep you on the edge, until the shocking ending reveals the Harper family’s secrets and a decade old unsolved mystery that will make your jaw drop to the floor.

What seems like a peaceful small town at first, actually hides a dark secret of missing children. When a boy goes missing in the woods, detective Harper (Jon Tenney – True Detective) and his partner Spitzky (Gregory Alan Williams – Greenleaf) get put on the case, discovering connections to a similar missing person’s report from a decade ago. At home, Harper’s family is dealing with their own setbacks, with wife Jackie’s (Helen Hunt – Mad About You) infidelity being the main cause of this seemingly perfect family’s tribulations. Son Connor (Judah Lewis – The Christmas Chronicles) isn’t handling the news very well, and strange things start happening all around the house.

More than once we get to see the house as if we’re flying over it, or when we slide through the halls of this lavish seaside mansion. Philipp Blaubach‘s (Gunpowder) stylish cinematography is so smooth, using every location to its full potential, with some interesting angles in the second half of the film. Photos and mugs go missing, the television switches on at random times and duvets get pulled from unaware sleeping inhabitants. With an eerie score, composed by William Arcane, the mood goes from dark to pitch black in nano-seconds to drive up the tension even more.

What really works in Adam Randall‘s (iBoy) newest film is the element of surprise. The film starts of a mystery-suspense thriller hinting at the supernatural, but dives deeper when it flips the film upside down halfway through. First time screenwriter Devon Graye has come up with a clever and well constructed script that leaves breadcrumbs from the very start to hint at events later on in the film. Is Jackie losing her mind? And is the family really in danger?! This doesn’t just make ‘I See You‘s mystery fun for the viewer in guessing what exactly causes these bizarre occurrences, but Graye also succeeds by turning the story into some sort of whodunnit, which isn’t an easy thing to pull off.

As far as acting goes, Hunt is surprisingly under utilized in the film, but is the biggest name to attract an audience into seeing the film. Her character is nuanced, but it definitely would’ve been nice to explore the guilt that visibly devours her from the inside. Lewis, who plays Hunt’s son in the film, is growing into a versatile talented young actor who’s getting ready for a huge breakthrough in mainstream media.

Nothing is what it seems, but one thing is for sure – ‘I See You‘ is best experienced when you don’t know too much about its premise.

‘I See You‘ will be released in Belgian cinemas on 1 July 2020.

Review – ‘I See You’

Reviewed online, June 29, 2020. Rating: R. Running time: 98 min.

PRODUCTION: An O’Brother Distribution release in association with Head Gear Films, Kreo Films FZ, Metrol Technology, Zodiac Holdings of a Zodiac Features production. Producer: Matt Waldeck (p.g.a.). Executive producers: James Atherton, Jordan Bayer, Eric Fischer, David Gendron, Mark Andrew Hamer, Ben Hecht, Phil Hunt, Matt Leipzig, Jan Pace, Compton Ross, Robert Ruggeri, Chris Sablan, Bill Schultz, Viviana Zarragoitia.

CREW: Director: Adam Randall. Screenplay: Devon Graye. Camera: Philipp Blaubach. Editor: Jeffrey J. Castelluccio. Music: William Arcane.

WITH: Helen Hunt, Jon Tenney, Judah Lewis, Owen Teague, Libe Barer, Gregory Alan Williams, Allison King, Erika Alexander, Jennifer Grace, Adam Kern.