MY LITTLE EYE. (2002) DIRECTED BY MARC EVANS. STARRING SEAN CW JOHNSON, KRIS LEMCHE, STEPHEN O'REILLY, LAURA REGAN. JENNIFER SKY, NICK MENNELL AND BRADLEY COOPER.
REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
I enjoyed this horror film about a 'reality show' web-cast well enough, even though it's pretty dated-looking by now and some of the characters are really bloody annoying. Still, most characters in horror films are annoying, aren't they? It's to get us all riled up so that we cheer like mad when they get brutally slaughtered, lol.
This film was made back in an era when people were starting to get interested in so-called 'reality television.' When Channel 4's BIG BROTHER first hit our screens back in 2000, it was something in the nature of a social experiment that proved to be a resounding success.
The franchise grew legs and prompted any number of spin-off shows, including BIG BROTHER'S LITTLE BROTHER, CELEBRITY BIG BROTHER, the live streaming episodes and of course all the nail-biting eviction shows on a Friday night. (Yes, I was there, every Friday night without fail in all the summers of the 'Noughties!) 'So-And-So, this is Davina (McCall), I'm coming to get you!'
The concept was pretty novel for its time. Stick a bunch of total strangers in a house together for the summer and film them the whole time they're there. Set them tasks and challenges and watch as they try to overcome the obstacles in their way. Feel a secret mean pleasure when they lose the challenge and their privileges, such as food, fags and booze.
Tempers flare when people are hungry or miss their fags and it makes for great telly. The episodes with the fights in them were by miles the most exciting- and probably the most popular- ones. Who wants to see a bunch of contented lazy people sunbathing every day? Not us, lol. We want to see 'em tearing chunks out of each other. People are naturally bloodthirsty. I bet there was never an empty seat in the amphitheatre when the Christians were being thrown to the lions...
Watching the contestants trying to have sex with each other was quite amusing too. I'm not sure if anyone ever actually had sex in the Big Brother House in those early years of the contest but I do believe that a few couples came tantalisingly close. Nowadays of course nothing is sacred. Put a bunch of people in the House today and Marcus Bentley would be telling us: 'Day Nine in the Big Brother House and Kim has come to the Diary Room to request a doctor after Marcus has given her a bad case of the crabs...!' Eeuw. Is nothing private any more?
Anyway, to continue our look at the format. Vote one person out of the house every week after two of the housemates have been 'nominated' for eviction by their fellow housemates. Let the viewers see, by means of the uncensored Diary Room scenes, which housemates nominated whom, but keep the nominated housemates in the dark. Let them spend the whole rest of the week trying to figure out which nasty little back-stabber put 'em up for eviction, haha. The idea was really pure f**king genius.
I remember cockney Maxwell and his bitchy girlfriend Saskia. I remember passionate trans-sexual winner Nadia losing her cool hilariously when Big Brother took her fags. I remember Wolverine (aka Marcus) and Freddie (Halfwit) and Sophie the 'tit bird' or Dog-face.'
I remember Makosi and Anthony and also Anthony's best mate in the house, Craig, who complained that the wig he was made to wear once as part of a challenge made him look like Moors Murderer Myra Hindley. He was right an' all. It did...! 'E were a bleedin' dead ringer for her, 'e were.
I remember the late great Pete Burns from 'Eighties pop group Dead Or Alive going into CELEBRITY BIG BROTHER dressed in real fur. That got him into trouble, as you can imagine. I remember the diminutive Mark Owen from Noughties pop band TAKE THAT going in and being really sweet, and a much-Botoxed Jackie Stallone, mother of Sylvester, being dug up for a spell in the house.
I remember Marcus Bentley saying, in his thick Newcastle accent, things like: 'Day Sixty-Four in the Big Brother House, and Alex is going for a piss.' I remember feeling positively bereft when, each August, the show would crown its winner and come to an end. Long hot summer nights spent lazily watching BIG BROTHER with a glass of wine in hand and the back door open to let in some air are nights I'll remember fondly.
MY LITTLE EYE (Wikipedia says it's British but if it's not one million percent American I'll eat my hat AND my coat. ) is about a reality show web-cast. It's on the 'Innernet' (that's how it's pronounced in the film), see?
Five people enter a big old isolated house in the middle of nowhere, having undertaken beforehand to stay there for a whopping six months. If anyone leaves the house prematurely, the remaining housemates forfeit the million dollar prize money.
If no-one leaves the house before the six months are up, the five housemates get a million bucks to share between them. Pretty sweet, huh? And all they have to do is to stay put for six months. Should be a piece of piss, right? Wrong, wrong, wrong. Would it be a cliché to say dead wrong...? It would? Ah, right. Well, I won't say it, so. But hopefully you get the picture...
The contestants, for it is a competition when all is said and done, are as follows. Matt and Danny are big burly interchangeable blonde hunks. They're not twins but they look quite alike and so, in my mind, they've melded into one, if you get me. I can't tell one from t'other.
Rex is quite cute in a scruffy way but he's kind of a total douche-bag. He's been in trouble with the police before and he makes it quite clear that he's not in the house to make friends, only to collect his share of the dosh. Oh, and if he can stir shit up a bit as well while he's in there, so much the better. Well, a guy's gotta amuse himself somehow, right?
Charlie's the slutty girl who shows her tits on camera and who wouldn't hesitate to have sex on film either if the opportunity presented itself. Good-girl Emma is the exact opposite. She's a long tall drink of water of a goody-two-shoes whom you just kind of want to see decapitated or something, anything just to take that prim, pissy prissy expression off her face.
Anyway, as you can imagine, a load of creepy stuff happens in the house that freaks out the contestants and makes them wonder if the producers of the show are f**king with them for ratings. Or if the producers are trying to find ways of getting out of paying them their million bucks. After all, if one of 'em leaves (or gets killed...), they forfeit the dosh, don't they?
The scariest thing of all is when they get a sneaky chance to go online themselves and they discover that nowhere on the 'Innernet' is there so much as a hint of the show they're supposed to be starring in, like, right now. Type what they will into the search engine, there ain't nothing coming up. So much for their being the hottest properties on the 'Innernet...'
What gives? Does their show not exist and, if it doesn't, then what the hell are they all doing there, snowed in as they are in the middle of nowhere? Just what exactly does this spooky production company have in store for them? Um, and what if there isn't even a million quid at the end of it all? The contestants are thinking some very black thoughts right about now...
There are a couple of interesting twists in this one that make it worthwhile sticking around till the very end. In the meantime, I'm off to the Diary Room to collect the consignment of champagne, chocolates, condoms and strawberries with cream that I put in for and sorely deserve, lol. Keep your knickers on, Big Brother. I'm-a coming...
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger, poet and book-and-movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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