‘Welcome to the Blumhouse’: Evil Eye Movie Review — Mother Fretter
Two more Welcome to the Blumhouse movies are now on Amazon Prime. Evil Eye is another winner, a supernatural horror movie steeped in Indian culture like we haven’t really seen in Hollywood.
‘Evil Eye’ begins with a meet cute
For a horror movie called Evil Eye, this one begins like a rom-com. In New Orleans, Pallavi (Sunita Mani) agrees to meet a boy her traditional mother Usha (Sarita Choudhury) sets her up with. But, while she’s waiting, she meets Sandeep (Omar Maskati) in the coffee shop and they hit it off. Even though he’s Indian too, Usha is suspicious.
Like the other Welcome to the Blumhouse movies, Evil Eye is a family drama before any of the horror stuff starts happening. This is a love story. Pallavi is in no rush, but she humors her mother and it happens that she makes a random connection. Sandeep and Pallavi have natural chemistry and they’re good match. It’s also important to see a movie with two two Indian characters falling in love.
The whole mother/daughter relationship happens over the phone. Usha still lives in Dehli, which must be real for a lot of families too. Sandeep and Pallavi bond over the shared experience of parents who try to set them up, and the difficulties traditional parents can create for modern young adults. Meanwhile, Usha becomes suspicious that Sandeep has nefarious intentions.
When ‘Evil Eye’ becomes a Blumhouse horror movie
Usha had an abusive relationship that we see snippets of. That’s already a real life horror story. However, Usha also believes in reincarnation and karma, so she worries that Sandeep might be her abusive ex reincarnated. Usha presents Pallavi with all sorts of traditional artifacts, like a bracelet that will protect her from the evil eye.
Whether you believe in reincarnation or not, Usha’s paranoia is real. Parents can fray relationships over significant others, so this is a delicate situation for Pallavi. She wants to be respectful to her mother, but how can you react when a parent tries to come between you and your boyfriend? Let alone when the reason is this.
Of course, it’s Blumhouse so you might suspect the supernatural element is more real than it would be in a straight drama. Evil Eye still invests in the relationship and family story before it ever goes there.
‘Welcome to the Blumhouse.’ You’re safe here.
Evil Eye ends up being a positive, empowering message for abuse survivors. It deals with the retraumatizing that can occur even after a person escapes an abusive relationship. In real life, it’s not supernatural retraumatizing, but the movie can use it as a metaphor for the psychological scars abuse leaves.
This movie manages to explore that through very specific Indian mythology. That also deserves to be just as prolific a trope as the likes of tarot cards and wiccan mythology. Welcome to the Blumhouse has been so consistent, the next four movies can’t come soon enough.
