“This is the most fucked up movie I’ve ever seen.”
While I won’t go as far as my wife, who sat wide-eyed on the couch painting a Christmas decoration while trying not to watch The Eyes of My Mother, there is no denying that the horror-drama comes from a dark place.
About a young girl-turned-woman who, traumatized by the brutal murder of her mother, develops her own disturbing habits, The Eyes of My Mother is a simple, black-and-white, 76-minute thriller that relies on straightforward yet reserved direction by Nicolas Pesce and an eerie performance by Kika Magalhaes.
The movie is pretty fucked up, as, despite the short runtime, Pesce takes the audience through a decade’s worth of disturbing, grounded horror featuring a series of murders and worse. The Eyes of My Mother is not your typical horror movie—there are no jump scares, little reliance on music (I don’t even recall there being any), and very little dialogue. The movie relies heavily on atmosphere, and Pesce lets the film’s disturbing events speak for themselves.
The Eyes of My Mother is unsettling yet oddly beautiful—in a dark, fucked up kind of way—and in a year of great horror is another solid entry for the genre.
Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.