Evil Eye is the latest horror entry from Amazon and Blumhouse. Directed by Elan and Rajeev Dassani, the film focuses on Usha’s (Homeland’s Sarita Choudhury) fear that her daughter Pallavi (Sunita Mani) was cursed with the “evil eye”. Usha has dreams of a past relationship with an evil man and fears the same will happen to her daughter.

When Pallavi gets a new boyfriend, Sandeep (Omar Maskati), Usha believes he’s not who he says he is. Usha’s growing paranoia begins to damage her relationship with Pallavi.

Evil Eye is an interesting concept that deals with the cross-section of family, religious beliefs, faith, and curses. As interesting as those points are, Evil Eye doesn’t do enough with those concepts.

The core of the story is Usha and her visions regarding her daughter’s potential fate with whatever man she ends up with. The constant flashbacks are a little confusing and it’s unclear what exactly Usha is seeing in her visions/dreams.

All the dreams, phone calls, arguments, and flashbacks lead up to an explosive reveal and third act. When the third act hits, what could’ve been an interesting turn, ends in Sandeep becoming cartoonish and a character that doesn’t really fit in the movie. Because of this, the third act falls flat. The reveal at the end should anchor the film, instead it weighs the film down and doesn’t allow it to rise above its tropes. 

As much as I wanted to enjoy Evil Eye, the film does zero with its interesting ingredients and feels like a Lifetime movie more than an exciting thriller worth your time this Halloween season.

Grade: C-