Welcome to Knockout Horror. Today I will be reviewing Social Media themed Found Footage horror movie Terror Eyes from 2021.This movie forced me to make a decision. I am going to be seriously cutting down how much I write. I am sick of devoting so much time to these awful movies. If you have read any of my reviews before, you probably know that I write a bit too much. Something which makes no sense at all given how bad some of the recent movies I have reviewed are. 

More Dark Web Found Footage

In summary, this movie follows a group of friends who are heading to the Joshua Tree festival. Suddenly finding themselves harassed by a greaser (yes, really) and his douche friend. Is it just random violence or could something a little closer to home be behind the whole thing? The bigger question here is whether anyone will actually give a shit? I know I don’t.

Anyone else think he looks like Chad Kroeger from Nickelback?

So you probably already know what to expect, here. Friends constantly posting to social media. A heavy focus on the dark web and sites that promote shocking videos. A romance sub-plot, voyeurism, and a bunch of footage shot from a mix of cameras, phones, security surveillance and other such devices. What could go wrong, right?

Holy Fucking Shit! 

I’m starting to feel like Tubi has pulled a bit of a bait and switch on us. I always ramble on about there being a decent selection of classic horror on there which kinda makes up for the trash. But, flicking through, I am noticing far less of the great movies and far more of the trash. What the hell happened? Did Tubi lose a bet with Prime Video and have to hand over their entire library? Did they forget to pay the licensing fees? I know a lot of movies move on from streaming services but this is kinda ridiculous. 

Jennifer Blanc-Biehn is criminally underused

The crazy thing is, I don’t know how each movie I am watching manages to be even worse than the last. Terror Eyes might be the pinnacle of terrible horror. I mean, we have the title for one. What a terrible play on words. But this movie manages to do so many things wrong and absolutely nothing right. Terror Eyes is a very specific kind of bad. A kind of bad that makes you wish that we could vet people before we sell them video cameras and give them access to editing equipment. It really is that awful.

It’s almost difficult to explain. Terror Eyes tries to have a bit of a techno indie horror vibe if you get my drift. It is highly stylised and full of ‘tude. A little bit like the original V/H/S but with a more 2020’s twist. The thing is, none of it works. It feels hokey, low budget, incredibly cheap and rather pandering. Simply put, it is entirely phony. And if you pull away that veneer of attitude and “style”. You are left with a horror that is both boring and extremely poorly made.

Messy, Predictable, And Very Boring

Terror Eyes feels pretty confused throughout its run time. It is predictable from the very get go. In fact, the movie dumps on tons of exposition throughout its run time. Despite this, when things hit something of a climax. The director saw it fit to hit us with a big reveal. As if we didn’t know what was going on the entire time. It’s really strange. We knew what was going on. You told us numerous times what was happening and we filled in the gaps in between. You don’t need the big reveal, you blew your load over 45 minutes ago. We’ve already cleaned up, rolled over and gone to sleep.

Yay, another pointless sub-plot

It’s bizarre stuff and makes for a messy film. The poor direction and haphazard editing leads to us watching the same scenes multiple times. Only with very slight changes. It feels hugely unnecessary and extremely out of place. What makes it worse is these moments are sandwiched between long periods of boring nothingness. The characters here are completely unlikable and spending any excess time with them is an utter chore. The fact that the story sees us stuck in the car with them, or at bars, for long periods of time is extremely annoying. Don’t even get me started on the horrible karaoke scene.

These horror movies always try to relate to the insta generation

Another big problem is that the things that happen here just don’t feel that significant. There’s never any sense of tremendous threat. The revelations that come, as the movie goes on, don’t feel important or surprising. And our cast of characters are such idiots that they are impossible to care about. Their farcical decision making is what lands them in trouble. Not one of them has an ounce of self preservation and they continually do the wrong thing.

A Really Tough Watch

This is one of those movies that really smacks of someone in their thirties attempting to market to kids. And I say that as someone who grew up in the 90s. There is a distinct feeling of chaos. With scenes fluttering around manically without any real rhyme or reason. Constant buzz words and references to the dark web litter every other shot. Shocking videos occasionally play out hinting at the seedy underbelly of the internet. All while an absolute idiot of a character repeatedly makes you cringe with his “how do you do fellow kids” style and verbiage.

Hope you like terrible singing in the car

Am I missing something here and that’s supposed to be the point? Is this movie trying to poke fun at the younger generation? If so, that seems pretty odd because, in reality, the biggest joke is this movie itself. And that this pile of trash actually made it to a final cut and found itself on Tubi. Maybe they should be the ones laughing, though. After all, I gave them nearly 90 minutes of my time watching it and however long it takes to write this review. There is almost a sense of parody to Terror Eyes. But I don’t think the writer is creative enough for that to be the case. I think it is, simply put, just a very toe curlingly embarrassing movie that tries to pander to kids and falls flat on its arse.

Poor Acting and Direction

Direction here is terrible. Shots move around from character to character like the camera was mounted on a human sized bobble head. It’s nauseating for much of the movie. As mentioned above, continuity is a big issue. If you can’t elaborate on what is taking place without presenting the exact same scenes from a slightly different angle. Don’t bother doing it. It doesn’t work in High Tension and it doesn’t work here. Scenes are offered up in a messy fashion, chaotically filmed from different devices. Affording the movie an almost nervous and jittery presentation of what is taking place.

This guy is so far beyond being simply annoying.

Cut aways to another character, who has almost no bearing on the plot, feel redundant and a waste of time. Pacing is glacial with long periods of nothing happening. And the convoluted plot throws so many elements at the wall in the desperate hope that something will stick that it’s hard to keep track of. Spoiler alert: none of them do.

Voyeuristic elements because every found footage needs them

Acting is pretty awful throughout. I can’t point to a single character as standing out in a good way. Jennifer Blanc-Biehn is criminally underused. Another sign that this movie huffs farts. Ayla Kell, as Lisa, seems to have more confidence and experience than the other actors but the script frequently lets her down. Matt Perfetuo, as Mike, is particularly bad. Feeling like they dragged him in off the street and made him read cue cards under the threat of being shot. It’s all just incredibly amateurish. From direction to editing to almost every single acting performance. This movie feels like it was made to bait negative comments on YouTube.

Final Thoughts and Score

Terror Eyes is a complete waste of time. It is poorly directed, poorly acted, predictable, cheesy, corny, cringey, lacking in scares and just plain bad. If someone told you to think up the worst dark web, social media themed, found footage horror movie ever. This is the movie that would probably come up. I can’t think of anything at all positive to say. It’s just a bad movie. Good job for trying, I suppose. Don’t quit your day job and I hope to God your day job isn’t making horror movies.