The Sight

A movie made for TV that was clearly meant to be a pilot for an on-going series. But as it often goes with made-for-TV pilots, the series never happened. A shame, really, as 'The Sight' shows good potential and the film is well-executed on all levels. 'The Sight' offers a bit of a strange mixture of mystery, thriller, horror & a touch of comedy. But somehow it works quite well. Pretty stylish too. Maybe nothing too special in general and it feels a bit too artificial at times. But as it hints at, a TV-series could have taken an interesting route with the material offered. The protagonist is a guy who inherits the ability to communicate with ghosts. Him and the ghosts end up working together to identify (and possibly defeat?) a serial killer. Just seek out a copy and watch the rest for yourself. Director at the helm of this project is Paul W.S. Anderson, who has a nice track record when it comes to science fiction & horror movies. On his filmography you'll find some quality genre entertainment like 'Event Horizon', 'Soldier' and some of the 'Resident Evil' films. 'The Sight' makes up for a nice addition and somewhat of a different kind of movie than what we're used to coming from Mr. Anderson.

I watched "The Sight" on late night TV and was surprised by the quality of this made for TV movie. I had never heard of this film before and wasn't expecting much. It was definitely wasted in such a late time slot on Australian TV. The TV network and film would have benefited from an earlier time slot.

It had great atmosphere, sets, locations and an excellent British supporting cast. This gave the film an eerie atmosphere reminiscent of the British "Prime Suspect" series.

I was surprised by the American casting although Andrew McCarthy was likable and vulnerable as the lead.

The script and direction were very good and the British cast were superb. I was hooked on the story and for a change I didn't work out who the Killer was till the end.

I hadn't I seen or heard of this film before?

I enjoyed this movie. The cinematography did add to the eerie feeling, and helped create suspense, although a bit overly used at times. The waviness of the very first scene in the film started to get on my nerves very quickly. That wasn't a good sign for being the first few minutes of the movie. All in all however, the style in which this was filmed really did add to the enjoyment of the movie. The story was good, and the screenplay was decent, some dialog seemed clunky, that might have been the acting.

It obviously was a pilot for a never to be seen TV show, which might have turned out to be REALLY bad if it had made it on the air. It's too bad that it couldn't have been slightly tweaked to get rid of the foreshadowing for future episodes at the end, filmed it in widescreen with at least one good actor, and this could have been a pretty good movie at the box office.

Now for the criticism...the movie really didn't seem to flow, it was kind of tumbling around, then finally got to a point, which was a pretty good twist at the end that made the movie worth while. However there are some rough times getting to the end. My biggest complaint, (I seem to be disagreeing with a lot of reviewers on here with this one;) THE ACTING WAS AWFUL! There wasn't a good actor to be found in that whole film, I think that "Isobel" was pretty good, but I might be biased because I think she is gorgeous! (I don't care if she is a ghost, I'd peek too!) Now when Andrew McCarthy is the best actor of the bunch, i mean Andrew McCarthy! This guy helped make movies like Less then Zero..Uhm..Less then Zero! The guy can't act his way out of a wet paper sack, but some of the "Brittish" cops managed to do a worse job.

If you want to watch a great show with the same idea but is carried out MUCH better, watch "Medium" ,Patricia Arquette's somewhat wooden acting is balanced out by the rest of the cast! OK so there you have it, this movie excelled at mediocrity.

The American successful architect Michael Lewis (Andrew McCarthy) travels to London with his partner and friend, the builder Jake (Kevin Tighe), to refurbish an old hotel. Michael is having successive nightmares, and once in London, he realizes that twenty-one spirits are trying to contact him to solve murders of a serial killer. Michael, with the support of Jake, Detective Pryce (Amanda Redman) and the ghosts, try to avoid the ninth crime and find the serial-killer.

I saw "The Sight" on video, and it seems to be a pilot of a series, since the story has a "hook" for a sequel. If this film is a pilot, I would like to know where I can find the series. The story is a kind of supernatural mystery movie in the same line of "Haunted", "The Others", "The Sixth Sense" and "El Espinazo del Diablo", and I really liked it. There are some flaws in the screenplay, like for example when Michael pays a visit to the lawyer in the burned building with his friend Jake, or why the ghosts do not simply tell him who the killer is, but anyway it is an enjoyable entertainment, working perfectly on video or DVD and being a promising TV series. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Visões" ("Visions")

Note: On 16 November 2022, I saw this film Again.

This isn't a stand out film, but I caught on late night TV, and I was hooked enough to stay awake the couple of hours that this film took to watch.

The acting is good, the story feels original (even though there's nothing particularly special about it).

It feels like the movie length premier of a brand new supernatural series (think the Dead Zone). There are hints that there's more to the story than we get to see in this film, not a bad thing, but I'm at a loss as to why you'd hint so clearly at there being more stories than the one we're shown, if you had no intention of telling them.

Worth a couple of hours if you catch it on TV, or pick it up as a weekly rental. Don't buy it.