Los ojos de Julia (2010)

I'm usually very cautious with my expectations towards Spanish horror/thrillers, especially if they look a little supernatural-themed and receive a lot of praise from beforehand. "Julia's Eyes" showed these characteristics, what with being produced by golden boy Guillermo Del Toro and all, but since it played at the Belgian Festival of Fantastic Films I still definitely wanted to see it. I'm glad to say "Julia's Eyes" is a tense and well-scripted thriller that is rather straightforward in its shocks and horror, rather than exaggeratedly suggestive and ghostly. It has been proved in the past that thrillers with blind female protagonists can scare quite effectively. The ravishing Belén Rueda joins the good company of Mia Farrow in "See No Evil" and Audrey Hepburn in "Wait Until Dark"; blind or narrowly blind damsels in distress who nevertheless fight back courageously. Julia suffers from a rare hereditary ailment which slowly but surely causes her to go blind. In order not to accelerate the forthcoming blindness, Julia must avoid all sorts of emotional stress. That's easier said than done, of course, especially when she discovers that her twin sister Sarah – who struggled with the same disease – committed suicide in the basement of her house. Julia refuses to accept that her sister solely killed herself because the eye operation failed and begins to dig into her private life, much against the will of her devoted husband Isaac. Julia discovers the existence of a mysterious and invisible man in Sarah's life, someone who may have drove her to commit suicide or even killed her. But then Julia collapses and loses her vision. The operation to save her sight is performed, but the first few weeks she'll have to live in darkness though with the help of a private nurse. It is during this period that Julia experiences exactly what her sister went through during her final moments…

The plot of "Julia's Eyes" is quite convoluted, with many characters that each have their own peculiarities and secrets. Nevertheless, director & co-writer Guillem Morales knows to maintain the suspense at a continuously high level and – even more importantly – the fear remains realistic and almost sensible. Especially the sequences taking place in the first few days after Julia's operation, when the audience is supposed to be as blind as the heroine herself, are extremely tense and unsettling. It's also during this period that the script contains a few harsh and totally unexpected shock moments that will surprise even the most experienced horror fanatics. During the last half hour, "Julia's Eyes" drops all allures of being a superior & sophisticated thinking man's thriller and literally turns into an old-fashioned bona-fide horror flick with nasty images and grotesque plot twists. I thought it was fantastic! The acting performances are terrific, with Belén Rueda basically deserving an Oscar for her role and Lluis Homar and Pablo Derqui providing excellent support. Highly recommended