Dead Eyes (2026) Review

Sean (Rijen Laine) takes a trip out into the forest with his fiancée Grace (Ana Thu Nguyen) and friends Eric (Charles Cottier) and Kate (Alea O’Shea) but they’re not there to take in the wonders of the great outdoors. They’re searching for Sean’s missing father Paul, who disappeared shortly after the tragic death of his daughter – and Sean’s sister – Lilly. Plagued by strange visions and vivid nightmares, Sean confronts his grief and inner turmoil in an attempt to find answers, except the answers are about to come looking for him…

Melding a first person perspective to a found footage thriller, Dead Eyes harnesses the urgency of the former to propel the latter, meaning that there isn’t that deathless first hour of aimless wandering around to kill time before divulging anything remotely important, although an early game of “spotlight” whiles away a few minutes as the viewer waits to see just where the inevitable jump scare is coming from. Having said that, the jolts here are generally well crafted and the temptation to overload the piece with ghouls lurching into frame is thankfully avoided.

Considering Sean’s dad is/was a scientist working for the Government, there are questions to be asked as to why there hasn’t been a larger investigation and why the area isn’t crawling with agents trying to solve the puzzle for themselves. However, it’s possible to suspend disbelief and set all of that aside as the tale really kicks into gear and the foursome find themselves totally out of their depth, not helped by Eric’s suggestion that Sean’s tangled mental state can be untangled by a “hero dose” of shrooms, leading to some pleasingly trippy visuals and dark humour.

Writer/director Richard E. Williams loads Dead Eyes with far more ideas than you would expect from a low budget yomp through the creepy wilderness, getting into the gruesome business early with some brief but strikingly bloody action and having Sean discover just what his father had been working upon with plenty of the runtime to go and a number of potential victims still in play which is another enjoyable swerve away from the usual “everyone’s dead but the main guy” sprint to the climax.

It’s at this point where matters switch from weird, woodland wandering into survival horror mode and the flee or flight loop possibly runs a little long, which saps the last act of a little of its momentum. However, the plot takes another turn in the last few minutes and goes even further off piste, stopping absolutely dead at an amusingly gross moment but without leaving the plot trailing for the inevitable sequel and having provided more than enough of a resolution by that point not to lose any goodwill.

Although he’s never seen, not even in a reflection, Laine’s voice performance is an effective one, portraying his escalating panic in a realistic way. Nguyen is the capable one with her own personal motivation when it comes to dealing with a crisis and Cottier is persuasively annoying as the 24/7 dickhead that is Eric, unable to see much beyond his ability to make most things about him and thoroughly ill-equipped to deal with the potentially lethal situation in which he finds himself. O’Shea is pretty good but is also the one who gets the most underwritten character and you can probably guess what that means.

In terms of POV horror, I’m of the opinion that the high watermark continues to be Franck Khalfoun’s inspired 2012 remake of Maniac but Dead Eyes works hard to bring something different to the camping table. Julian Panetta’s cinematography captures both the naturally forbidding nature of the backwoods settings and those uncanny, shadowy shapes on the horizon. As for the unfolding narrative, it’s satisfyingly detailed and more than pacy enough to carry the proceedings over a couple of minor stumbles, ultimately delivering on its promise of unnerving revelations and impactful nastiness. Kudos to the Aussies for once again making their homeland look like the last place you would want to find yourself.

Movie Rating:

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