As a lover of all things found footage—and first-person survival horror video games—Dead Eyes was an absolute must-see. The entire film unfolds through the eyes of Sean (Rijen Laine), desperately searching the forest for his missing father. Along for the ride are his fiancée, Grace (Ana Thu Nguyen), their obnoxious pal, Eric (Charles Cottier) and his girlfriend, Kate (Alea O’Shea). The setup is surprisingly simple, with a breezy runtime that leaves no room for pesky filler. Even if it doesn’t reinvent the wheel, there are some serious spine-tingling terrors found within. Disturbing, mean-spirited, and deliciously twisted, Dead Eyes delivers heart-stopping horror at maximum speed.
Described as a “first-person nightmare,” Dead Eyes plunges viewers straight into the middle of the woods. There’s no Blair Witch-style setup to flesh out the location or the mystery. Instead, we revisit the past in dreamy nightmare sequences, still set through the eyes of lead, Sean. His character, as is typical with those in this subgenre, serves as a sort of audience surrogate, but still receives plenty of depth. Sean’s backstory complicates matters—this isn’t just a search party for Sean’s father. His sister, Lily, died under mysterious circumstances years ago. That residual trauma bleeds into the present day proceedings, becoming a toxic combination when mixed with hallucinogenic mushrooms.
By the time Sean and Grace pry open a dingy trap door and head down into an eerie basement bunker with bizarre objects hanging from the ceiling, writer/director/producer Richard E. Williams has boldly signaled his arrival in the genre space. Make no mistake, this brand of horror aims for genuine scares, and for my money, it truly succeeds. Traipsing through the forest illuminated only by flashlight adds an extra layer of nail-biting terror. When the veil finally lifts on the greater mysteries behind the premise, it still manages to carry just enough freaky Resident Evil shenanigans to unnerve the viewer. Some of this imagery takes weeks to shake.
By sticking to one specific perspective, Dead Eyes also manages to avoid falling into a trap of inconsistent tone that can plague many a horror production. Instead, this is lean, mean, and tantalizingly ferocious. The evil bites back, and not even Sean’s POV is a safe space. One aspect that’s a little lighter is the blood and gore department. Yet, with this small of a cast, the big moments hit hard with gory practicality. The freaky mantra of one central character echoes that “perfection takes experimentation.” No such experimentation is needed here: Richard E. Williams crafts a memorably twisted delight that should leave genre fans bloodthirsty for more.
Dead Eyes screened at 2026’s SXSW Film & TV Festival.
