To go by his werewolf movie Cursed, you’d have thought Wes Craven had long ago run out of ideas. For someone who gave the horror genre a shot in the arm with A Nightmare on Elm Street, then found fun ways to send it up with Scream I, II and III, Cursed is the most pallid and clichéd kind of horror you could find. It feels as though it was made at least 20 years ago, instead of early this year.
And yet, mere weeks after the release of Cursed here, Craven is back with the highly thrilling Red Eye. It’s hard to believe this is the same director.
I suspect the difference between crap Craven and good Craven lies in the script. He may be a very competent director but, without a good script, that is a moot point.
In the case of Red Eye, the script is by Carl Ellsworth, who cut his teeth on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Xena: Warrior Princess, which isn’t exactly hopeful. But with Red Eye, his first feature-film script, he has come up with a humdinger.
Rachel McAdams plays Lisa, who works for a big hotel in Miami. She has been away from work for a funeral, but is now on her way back. She’s catching the red-eye home, where her dad (Brian Cox) is waiting anxiously. He has reason to be anxious. In the check-in queue at the airport, Lisa meets a charming stranger (Cillian Murphy), and when she finally gets to her seat on the plane she finds he’s sitting next to her.
It turns out that this is no accident. He has sinister designs on her, and more; she, of course, has to resist or try to escape — rather hard when you’re in a flying metal tube a few kilometres up in the air. The sense of claustrophobia induced by this locale provides instant tension, which is always useful in a thriller.It also adds a dash of post-9/11 terror to the mix, which works well in terms of the plot.
More than that I won’t say. Overall, though, in Red Eye we have a taut, often nerve-racking, little thriller. Craven keeps things moving along efficiently, relying on character and situation rather than big bangs and car chases.
Murphy is perfect as the manipulative captor, with the good looks and piercing eyes necessary for such a role. He’s very good at being menacing. McAdams (also to be seen in Wedding Crashers) is fine, too — she has beauty, and an easy grace that predicts a healthy movie career to come. She easily engages our sympathies, and keeps us on-side.
Everyone can identify with the fear of finding oneself, on a plane, trapped next to some bore. In future, be glad it’s not much much worse.