A young boy, facing impending surgery on his eyes to try to stave off blindness, wanders his quiet London borough.The only problem is he believes that a slasher is stalking blind women....The last time I heard anything about this movie, was when it was released in 1991, the film had a limited release, and I never heard of it again, much like an Ex who I owed money to.I found the film the other night on MGM HD, and just had to kill the curiosities I had when I was 13.And the film didn't disappoint at all, in fact it threw me a right doozy within the first hour. When we start the film, Lucas is surrounded by blind people (one of whom is played by the woman who played Cassandra in'Only Fools...'), one whom in particular is very beautiful, which the director noted, as sh is the only one who doesn't wear glasses.So far it's eerie, and has a very 'don't look now' feel about it. Bu then we have the inclusion of a man who carries a razor to cut blind people up for no good reason.Could it be David Thewlis?, could it be the weird looking window cleaner? Could it be the Ice Cream man? It's not the Mcgann brother who was good in Paper mask, surely?....And then the film takes a very 'Cabinet of Dr. Caligari' turn, it turns out that this was some sort of delusion from the main character, who is losing his sight, and as it turns out, his mind to some extent.The title reads differently now doesn't it?.....With this movie, the director has turned it from some quaffable slasher pic, to something intriguing, and sometimes that tense, you won't want knitting needles in the same room as a child ever again.The performances are first rate, especially from the the boy who played Lucas, and the Girl who played Rose.The rest of the cast are good also, but these two stand out, particularly when you realise they haven't really done anything this big since.A strange, dystopia of a film, heavily dated thanks to the fact that us Brits couldn't part from yuppies at this time, but a film to keep you guessing until the very end.

the problem for me with this movie was the texture. I thought, "oh OK Foucault, the panopticon" because of the way the first big section was all about spying on the part of this boy who seemed destined to see everything no matter where he looked, but then of course that's his imaginary narrative, and so it makes sense that the blind people don't act like real blind people, that the world seems completely fake, and yet. . . in order for all this to play, the blindness shouldn't be so formalized - the constant pulling apart and putting back together of the damn white canes, everyone staring ahead without sunglasses, looking for all the world like people playing at being blind who haven't really got it down. It's impossible to suspend ye old disbelief in this over stylized movie. Including casting of the mother who was such a giant compared to everyone else in the cast and OK she was from another country in reality she seems another species. Some apple carts were needed or something. I couldn't get over the unflagging "wrong look" of the whole dang thing. I don't care for symbolism served up with such an artificial touch. I stopped halfway through to read about it here and some peoples' idea of the people being "blind" in some way is nice but watching the movie... I couldn't get through it. Funny to read reviews I guess something happens to the dog? Something bad! Poor Tobey!

How apt that a story about sight requires some close scrutiny in order to be understood.The real impetus of this movie occurs in the details. Some random examples: *Lucas' name means "light." *The pattern on his pajamas resembles prison stripes, perhaps symbolizing the entrapment and immobility that he fears from impending blindness.*The dual nature of the knitting needle--a)descriptions like 'sharp' and 'penetrating' apply to its function as well as to a person's insightful abilities, and b)the veiled sexual reference of the act of stabbing as a displacement for the impotence Lucas feels, both in losing his sight as well as for the basic powerlessness of childhood.*He sees through a telescope/he calls his knitting needle a telescope...telescopes are supposed to bring the distant object close, but they also fold inward on themselves, a diminution of what they were. They reveal, and then they collapse.*The color blue, mostly missing from the film's palette, is used mainly for tiny details like picture frames (something which contains our visions...rather like Lucas' eyeglass frames contain his actual vision); a cabinet (also something which contains, even locks up, and can withhold its contents from view as opposed to putting them on display); the baby sister's beautiful blue eyes, praised even as Lucas' eyes are ever more distorted through his lenses; the knitting his mother makes for the baby, surely an unusual color for a female infant--but is it really blue or has Lucas completely lost sight of reality by now? Even his demeanor is "blue" as he becomes increasingly more detached, both from reality and from the people and events around him.His detachment is partly a result of his confusion. He can hardly see, and what he thinks he sees, he can't trust. Therefore, his responses to people become odd and then almost nonexistent. For the most part he stops reacting to them. He is in the process of disappearing from his own life. The world is becoming invisible, and so, it seems, shall he.He further detaches from the world around him as people remain blind to his bizarre inner landscape and the worries besetting him. There is a lovely dichotomy in the scene where he is across the street from the wedding crowd. Without his thick lenses, the people appear to be ineffectually stabbing about with canes and dark glasses. When he puts his lenses back on, the people look normal. They can't see when he can't see, but they can when he can. One of his fears is that the world will be as uncomprehending of him as it will be incomprehensible to him, when he is blind.There is also the fear that other senses aren't to be trusted. Notice the scene where Toby is trying to get in the window: the squeeching of the soapy rag against the glass blends with the dog's eager whines until the noises and suds somehow become the signs of a crazed, foaming beast. The deterioration of Lucas' senses and the destruction of what he loves become one and the same.No wonder this is a terrified little boy. And if he can be impelled by his dark visions to kill Toby, whom he loves, what might he do to baby Tess who is, at the very least, an object of ambivalence? Interesting that the name Tess means 'harvester' or 'reap.' To reap is to glean (a common synonym for comprehension, as in "what can you glean from this situation?"). It is to collect, to gather--also terms for pulling oneself together. A harvester is productive, someone who expedites growth (crops in the field) into sustenance (grain for the bread), just as the emergence of baby Tess brings about the full flowering of Lucas' fears, feeding them to the point of his fateful act.Tess is the final catalyst, personifying the loss that Lucas so dreads. He has lost big sister Rose to marriage and eventual motherhood, his parents to their absorption with the baby, his pal Toby is dead, his grip on reality is loosening, and he is losing his vision and with it, his freedom. For all he knows he could even lose his life in the impending eye operation. All this loss solidifies in the diminutive image of Tess. The periphery of his world has narrowed until the only focus is this new little baby who hasn't seen anything yet, and so he takes her. To preserve her? To show her his view of the world? To make her the repository of his last vision? Or for something more sinister? At this point the action is pretty ambiguous. I can't tell what his intentions are, and maybe he can't, either. However, in looking at the clues provided in the names (father Frank, means forthright, let's-be-frank; mother Miriam, biblical namesake protects the boy Moses; sister Rose, roses signify purity, love; brother-in-law Tony, means 'praiseworthy'; Lucas and Tess, lucidity and reaper) I tend to think a positive outcome is intended all along.It is a nice moment at the end when Lucas tells the nurse, "I like to look," whereas before, looking had become a frightful, confusing exercise. He watches her knitting needles as shadow puppets on the wall, but instead of something horrific they are just...knitting needles. Nothing more. Real is real.That's how I see it, anyway. Someone else might have a different interpretation. I have to love a movie that lends itself to alternate views.

I asked myself what kind of comments I could make on this movie without having them contain spoilers. It is a challenge and the following paragraph is what I could come up with.This movie is a thriller, but don't expect a thrill a minute. It has an austere feel, with even pacing punctuated by moments of horror. There are scenes that made me wince, scenes that I found repugnant, and a couple of scenes that made me gasp. But, as with most movies in this genre, the tension builds in anticipation of the intense scenes; the music aids in creating this tension. The action is seen primarily through the eyes and imagination of eleven-year-old Lucas (Ben Keyworth) who is rather withdrawn and reactive. How you respond to the one major plot twist will determine whether you think this is an interesting movie, or whether you think it is confusing with enough improbabilities and plot holes only to irritate.**Spoilers here** The revelation mid-way that what we have seen are dreams or hallucinations that Lucas has been having in response to his potentially going blind give meaning to the title beyond what one initially thinks. I knew only what I had read in Maltin's book before seeing the movie, but the mid-story revelation was not a total surprise, since we had been living in an unreal world until then. There were never any indications of normal life going on - an unreal world where no cars were on what should have been busy streets, and no people to be seen but those directly involved in the scene at hand. Lucas transforms his fear of the surgeon's scalpel into the razor of a serial slasher praying on blind people. His mother is blind (signifying her inattention to Lucas' agony?) and his father is a policeman who is unable to locate the slasher (signifying his impotence to deal with Lucas' problem?) In the final episode of this first-half mad sequence Lucas tracks the slasher down and kills him in a symbolic attempt to exorcise the eye surgeon from his life.After that catharsis we supposedly return to the real world, but things get a little confusing then. We come to feel that not only has Lucas been driven to fantasy by his fear and anxiety but perhaps he has also been driven a bit mad. Children can certainly respond in exaggerated and irrational ways to perceived threats (well, adults can too), so I could believe the first half as that kind of reaction, but in the second half, when Lucas hallucinates in real time, I began to question his sanity. I suppose fear and anxiety can drive one to madness, but the way Lucas would drift in and out of reality (usually being in when he had his glasses on and out when not) struck me as borderline schizophrenia and I believe that that is a more organic disorder than a response to fear and anxiety. But, in the final scene, after the operation, Lucas seems to have returned to normal, even questioning if he had killed the neighbor's dog. So, go figure.If there is a message to be taken from this it is that people should try to be a little more in tune with what is going on in the minds of others. We are inclined to put a smiley face on situations where there is clearly something bad going on. It is clear that Lucas is having some serious problems, but his parents are more than happy to take him at his word when he says that things are just fine, even when they can sense at some deep level that that is not the case.