BEFORE: Well, I had a really easy shift last night, that kind of makes up for some of the longer ones where I'm on my feet for 12 hours straight, or have to watch a crew of guys build a tent until 1 am. The theater had a talk on DEI featuring a cabinet member, Biden's secretary of education. There was an audience of maybe 38 people, 40 at the most, sitting in a 270-seat theater - and the Q&A session ended early because the former secretary had to catch a plane, and he wanted some photo time in the lobby with the audience members. We had the talk scheduled to run until 8 pm, but the questions ran out at about 7:20, and everyone was clear from the building by about 7:45, and we locked up at 8:15 instead of 9 pm. I don't care, that's the dream shift, when do I ever get out of there early? Plus there was very little set up and almost no breakdown, just re-set the theater and lock up - I got home and didn't really know what to do with the rest of the evening, I logged in some comic books because it was TOO early to start my movie. This just doesn't happen often - but my life's about to get crazier when the shifts on the second job start. I may be exhausted by the time our October road-trip comes around.
Jessica Alba carries over from "Awake".
THE PLOT: Violinist Sydney Wells was accidentally blinded when she was five years old. She submits to a cornea transplant and while recovering from the operation, she realizes that she is seeing dead people.
AFTER: Well, look at that, a film about a heart transplant followed immediately by one about cornea transplants. Can you believe Jessica Alba was in TWO horror films where organ donation was a plot point? Seems like of like a weird coincidence, but that's where we find ourselves. This time SHE plays the recipient, though, and what they don't really tell you about organ donation is this thing called cell memory, like if you get a lung transplant and suddenly develop a desire to start smoking, what might that tell you about the donor? Or if you get a new (and by new I mean used) kidney, could you suddenly become a drinker if you weren't one before? Now I have to go and Google whether this is a real thing or just something they came up with for the movie.
Hmm, it seems like it's pretty theoretical, other than some people saying they had unusual food cravings after receiving a new organ, there's not much evidence out there for this phenomenon. Things like that could also be caused by the medications involved or the psychological effects of receiving a transplant, like the recipients could be hyper-aware of any new thoughts or feelings they may have, then just naturally assume they're being caused by the transplant somehow.
But Sydney Wells also starts seeing bizarre images after she gets her new corneas, and she's apparently seeing ghosts, some recently departed, and also the strange "shadow creature" that has come to take people's souls and escort them to the afterlife. Well, good news, kind of, because that would mean that there IS an afterlife, but we don't know if that elevator's going up or down, if you catch my drift. All Sydney knows is that the Shadow Man came to take her hospital roommate away, and then the next morning she learned that Mrs. Hillman passed away during the night. This, hopefully, is a rare phenomenon among organ recipients, like probably less than 1% of people have reported seeing dead people after this operation. 2%, tops.
Let me back up, though, and question the original premise of the film, which is that Sydney Wells is a blind concert violinist. Is this possible in real life? Like, how does she read the sheet music or watch the conductor conducting? There's no system I know that can tell a blind orchestra member that the conductor is urging them to play faster or slower or louder or softer, so how exactly would this work? How does she learn the musical piece in the first place, is there Braille for music? Again, Google to the rescue here, because one notable blind violin player is Michael Cleveland, a Grammy winning bluegrass fiddler. Doc Watson was another blind bluegrass musician, and in the classical arena, there's M. Chandrasekaran, a South Indian violin maestro. They apparently play primarily by ear and have exceptional auditory memory, in addition there are music programs that teach violin (and presumably other instruments) in schools for the blind. So there must be a way for the students to read music using Braille or something, it just seems a lot more difficult than reading the notes on the staff.
Sydney was doing fine before she got the new corneas, caveat emptor I suppose because it might be better to not see anything than to have to see dead people in addition to everything else. There are ghosts in her building, ghosts in the Chinese restaurant, and ghosts walking away from every car accident. When her therapist comes to visit her at home, she's laying in bed with a towel wrapped around her head, essentially she's blind again, because with her vision restored she got more than she bargained for. (Plus, now she has to learn how to read music, what a pain in the neck...). Hey, at least when she can't see she can probably get some sleep, I get it, clearly seeing what's going on in the world can keep you up at night.
Finally she begs her therapist, Paul, to find out more about her cornea donor, and it's a complete violation of medical rules for her to learn about her donor, so of course he looks that up for her. The corneas came from Mexico, this probably meant they were more expensive because of the tariffs. But Paul and Sydney learn that the donor was psychic and had visions of an industrial accident, however she was unable to stop it, and she hung herself because people in her village died in the accident. I guess this explains the visions that Sydney has been having about fire and death, but why would that woman's eye continue to keep showing those visions, when the accident is in the rear-view, unless they're different visions of a different accident that hasn't happened yet...
It's a pretty good idea for a premise for a horror movie, but then there's really no follow-through - what about the Shadow Man, which we never see again? Couldn't he try to take someone away to heaven or hell and we could have Sydney try to stop him? Instead she saves a bus-load of people and a little girl in a truck with the information from her flash-backs, which are really flash-forwards or something, and then it just feels like somebody forgot this is supposed to be a horror movie at the end of the day. Know what I mean? I guess we're still building up to the super scary stuff in the chain - there's some creepy ghost stuff here, but nothing that would make me unable to fall asleep. I guess we all don't like to think about the fact that people have probably died at some point in every building around their city, so if ghosts are real, they're probably all over the place. But then why didn't the Shadow Man come and get those ghosts, was he unable to find them, like is he really bad at his job? I guess if he can't find me and drag me to hell that could be a good thing, but is spending all of eternity in the same, boring, fart-filled elevator really that much better?
NITPICK POINT: She got a double cornea transplant, right? Did both corneas come from the same donor? Is that common or uncommon? They keep saying the problem is with her EYE, not her EYES, so can she only see dead people with one eye, or is it both? All of this is unclear.
Directed by David Moreau & Xavier Palud
Also starring Alessandro Nivola (last seen in "The Brutalist"), Parker Posey (last seen in "Beau Is Afraid"), Rade Serbedzija (last seen in "Shooter"), Fernanda Romero, Rachel Ticotin (last seen in "Something's Gotta Give"), Obba Babatunde (last seen in "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge"), Danny Mora, Chloe Grace Moretz (last seen in "The Amityville Horror"), Brett A. Haworth, Kevin Phan, Tamlyn Tomita (last seen in "Four Rooms"), Esodie Geiger (last seen in "The Marksman"), Karen Elizabeth Austin, James Salas, Brett O'Mara, Landall Goolsby, Sarah Baker Grillo, Laura Slowinski, Richard Redlefsen, Amanda Shamis Flannery, Kisha Sierra, Mark Bankins, Heather Doerksen, Peter King, Tegan Moss (last seen in "Little Women" (1994)), Kam Hing Chau, Jasmin Dring, James H. Spencer, Zak Santiago, Juan Carlos Cantu (last seen in "To Leslie"), Mia Stallard (last seen in "The Space Between Us"), Jane E. Goold.
RATING: 5 out of 10 shards of broken glass
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