phancy.com - horror reviews - MOH 2020

Evil Eye



IMDb Info

Release Year: 2020
Runtime: 1h 30min
Country: India
Language: English, Hindi
Genre Tags: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Plot Summary: A superstitious mother is convinced that her daughter's new boyfriend is the reincarnation of a man who tried to kill her 30 years ago.

Poster - Title Card


phancy.com rating:

phancy.com notes: More drama than horror. Slow pacing kills any intended tension. Performances are good, but there's not enough story to support 90 minutes of (too) slow burn.


Outside Reviews:

Nick Allen
2.5 out of 4 stars - rogerebert.com

And yet Evil Eye is mostly strong where it counts, beginning with the stakes of Pallavi and Usha's relationship. As the story presents their progressively tense phone conversations (despite being on the other half of the world), it establishes a palpable divide - Pallavi has become less of a cynic about relationships, and is unaware of how much she is losing her independence. Meanwhile, her mother, previously so adamant about her daughter getting married, starts to sound like she's changed her opinion on the whole concept, and sounds more controlling than ever. Directors Elan Dassani and Rajeev Dassani accentuate this emotional disconnect in the movie's many effective phone call scenes, especially when the two strong performances occupy opposing parts of alternating frames. It's a testament to everyone's emotional work that Choudhury and Mani feel like their characters are clashing with each other as if they were in the same room.


A.A. Dowd
Grade: C - Don't expect many scares from the first four movies in Amazon's Welcome To The Blumhouse series

There's a faint, unfortunate whiff of Tyler Perry melodrama to the deadly dull Evil Eye (Grade: C). The title promises a tale much spookier and pulpier than this padded-out intergenerational soap opera about a New Orleans twentysomething (rising star Sunita Mani, also appearing this month in Save Yourselves!) whose superstitious mother (Sarita Choudhury), calling constantly from Delhi, becomes convinced that her daughter may be falling into a shadow reboot of an abusive relationship from her past. Screenwriter Madhuri Shekar adapted the story from her own Audible audio play, and after the umpteenth visually drab scene of overqualified actors delivering dialogue into their phones, one is forced to conclude that it probably should have stayed in that medium—or at least been directed less like a bland romantic comedy, all shot-reverse-shot and establishing drone footage.