By MICHAEL GINGOLD
It’s the latest fright feature scaring its way up from Down Under.
DEAD EYES, written and directed by Australian filmmaker Richard E. Williams, has its world premiere Thursday, March 12 at the SXSW Film Festival, followed by screenings on the 16th and 18th (details here). It stars Mischa Heywood (BRING HER BACK), Ana Thu Nguyen (MORTAL KOMBAT II), Stephen Phillips, Charles Cottier andAlea O’Shea, with additional performances by Rijen Laine. The synopsis: “Sean [Laine] and his fiancée, Grace [Nguyen], enter a remote forest to search for Sean’s missing father, Paul [Phillips], who vanished following the tragic death of his youngest daughter, Lilly [Heywood]. Returning to the site of Lilly’s death forces Sean to confront his inner demons—which soon begin to manifest in terrifying physical ways. Their search takes a horrifying turn when they uncover Paul’s dark secret: cloning experiments designed to resurrect Lilly. The forest is now inhabited by cannibalistic mutant girls, each a clone of Lilly, violently battling to prove she is the ‘real’ one. As Sean and Grace uncover the grim truth, they must survive grotesque creatures while grappling with disturbing questions about identity, loss, and the boundaries between life and death.”
The movie was shot using a custom head-mounted Sony VENICE Rialto system, in order to “deliver a fully immersive, first-person cinematic experience.” Williams previously wrote and directed the 2023 psychological thriller WHITE BLOOD.
