My Little Eye -- Special Edition [DVD] [2002]

Product Description

A group of five strangers agree to spend six months living together in a house constantly monitored by surveillance cameras in order to win a prize of $1 million dollars. As the time passes, tensions grow among the residents, and when a stranger named Travis arrives, his presence threatens to ignite the powder keg of pent-up emotion. Conscious they are being manipulated but unsure to what end, they hack into a phone line and soon discover themselves to be the unwitting pawns in a perverse and very deadly game.

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My Little Eye comes from the same school as Series 7: The Contenders and The Blair Witch Project, attempting to play on our fears by using the medium of film itself. The difference here is this film's willingness to use striking camera angles, editing and "night view" cameras that take the idea of Big Brother onto pay-per-view internet where no-one is around to hear you scream.

Locked away in a deserted house, six "contestants" (or stereotypes) are adhering to curfews and confinement in a bid to win money: unlike Big Brother, though, the twist here is that no-one gets evicted, they all have to stay to win. To begin with the "company" looks after them, delivering food and warmth, however towards the end of their six-month stay weird things begin to happen. Rex, the most clued-up of the contestants, despite his alleged mental imbalance, surmises that the "company" are trying to scare them out of the prize money, but as time goes on and a mystery visitor mysteriously disappears it becomes clear that things are about to become very brutal in a bid to please their pay-per-view audience.

Although the reality-film premise may be wearing a little thin by now, director Marc Evans still manages to pull a few surprises out of the bag, particularly at the macabre ending, which subverts all rules of the horror genre and will leave the audience trembling because maybe, just maybe, this could be happening.

On the DVD: My Little Eye two-disc set is a genuinely innovative achievement. Disc 2 offers the standard DVD special features, including a 30-minute making of featurette, which is beautifully filmed. However, it's Disc 1 which has the real gem. Along with a well transferred film (16:9, Dolby 5.1 sound) and informative director's commentary, there is also the option to view the film in "Interactive Browser Mode". What this means is that once you've entered the hidden code you are able to watch as if you are a pay-per-view customer on the internet, with the ability to view audition tapes and archives (six deleted scenes of them in the first few months), eavesdrop into conversations, and choose different cameras for certain scenes. The result is a truly interactive experience that definitely increases the fear factor. --Nikki Disney