The first Wes Craven film that I remember seeing was Deadly Blessing. I saw it at the Plaza East and really enjoyed it. It was very well made and sufficiently creepy. Later on I saw Hills Have Eyes, Nightmare on Elm Street and many other Craven films. I enjoyed almost every one of his films that I saw. When Red Eye came out to theaters, I missed it. I wasn’t really going to many films at the time, so it wasn’t as if I was purposely shunning the film. When it came out on DVD, my daughter wanted to see it, but I wasn’t ready to plop down $20 for it, so I waited for a copy to come in to the pawn shop. When Wills got a copy, I bought it and added it to the collection, but I never sat down and watched it. I’m not sure if my daughter did or not.
I have been trying to check out some horror movies since Halloween in so close, and I decided that even if it is a thriller more than an actual horror movie, Red Eye was a Wes Craven film and that was good enough for me. Plus it was around 90 minutes.
Red Eye takes place almost entirely on an airplane. Young hotel employee on her way up, Lisa Reisert played by Rachel McAdams, is on her way back to work after attending a funeral out of state. On her way to boarding she meets Jackson Rippner (Cillian Murphy) and is surprised to find herself sitting beside him on the flight back home. Unfortunately as she soon learns, his presence there as her seat mate was not a happy accident. Jackson works for a group that specializes in political assassinations and the like. He has one of his men stationed outside the house of Lisa’s dad, Joe (Brian Cox), and plans to kill him if Lisa doesn’t call and arrange to have his political target moved to a different hotel room where he can be more easily disposed of.
The plane ride becomes a contest between the two with Lisa wanting to save her father’s life, but not wanting to play any part in having politician Charles Keefe (Jack Scalia) and his family killed. Craven does a wonderful job of creating tension using the screenplay written by Carl Ellsworth to great effect. For a film that seems inherently limited by its own structure, Red Eye proves to be a surprisingly effective thriller.
The DVD provides a couple of well done featurettes on the making of the movie as well as a gag reel. Many of the behind the scenes folk have cameos as airline passengers or hotel guests and the featurette points out many of them.
I really enjoyed Red Eye and give it 3 stars. It’s very simple, but very effective.
365 Days of DVDs 