If society gets the kind of horror which reflects and distorts its worst nightmares, then it seems these days that we’re the monsters – isolated, repressed and sinking fast. Open Your Eyes (2021) certainly fits into this category, and does a lot with its minimal elements, despite a couple of lulls here and there. After a tense introduction, we meet our lead, Jason (a very able Ry Barrett), who seems to be busying himself with a wealth of mundane, everyday activities; oh, wait, he’s a writer, so this is good, honest procrastination. A first draft of his newest screenplay is due imminently, so naturally he can’t get a thing done, no matter how much coffee he brews. We’re privy to him sat, listless, staring at his laptop. Some might say that Jason’s creative torpor, from the depths of his claustrophobic apartment, is horror enough, and perhaps it could have been.
But there seems to be more going on than simple writer’s block. Waking suddenly after pulling an all-nighter, he notices some strange marks running down one of the apartment walls. With no idea where this is coming from, he attempts to investigate by asking his upstairs neighbour, but there’s no reply; if this is a leak, then it’s not going to get resolved any time soon. Then he begins to notice things, things which may or may not be there. The beginnings of a friendship, perhaps even a relationship with his pretty neighbour Lisa (Joanna Saul) shows potential as a distraction but when he spends time with her, the strange experiences seem to increase, making it increasingly difficult to hope for more. Meanwhile, as the phenomena increase, his feelings of panic and unhappiness escalate.
It always strikes me as a big gamble when a film starts with what is clearly a climactic moment, be it the ending or at least something far nearer to the ending, and this is something which Open Your Eyes risks by doing. Jason is shown to us first off struggling with something and in some state of acute distress, before we are whisked to a clearly different moment in time – i.e. the procrastination scenes, which occur in the first few minutes. Not only does this dispense with some element of surprise, but the film gives itself the task of convincingly developing tension up to a point which we already know something about. All in all, it has the potential to flounder. Open Your Eyes does, all in all, avoid these pitfalls. Economical by its nature, with a tiny set and usually only one actor on screen, it has a long way to go to maintain audience engagement, but it manages with only a few short lapses: this is pretty impressive, and it’s also relevant that the film has a fairly solid run time for so few changes of scene or interactions between actors, and it largely handles this too. A good deal of the credit for this must go to Barrett, who may have a few too many instances of “Fuck!” and “Goddamnit!” in his early script, but still shows that he is equal to the shades of irritation, boredom, disbelief and, finally, alarm and fear in store. In terms of the building blocks of this film, I did find the constantly booming (or whimsical) soundtrack a little grating where it seemed to be constantly implying something dreadful was about to come; it worked far better towards the end of the film, and for me, the quietly creepy scenes were the genuinely unnerving ones.
Overall, though, it’s the aspects of overlap between art – particularly writing, given the narrative – and reality which give Open Your Eyes its most intriguing content, even if the film comes at it quite obliquely. To say more would give the game away, but it adds a very worthwhile depth to the film overall. The ‘monster psyche’ idea has been done elsewhere, but Open Your Eyes deserves its place amongst those films which have looked at similar ideas. There are some engaging twists and turns from this stylish indie movie.
Open Your Eyes (2021) is available now on VOD, DVD & Blu-ray from Gravitas Ventures.