Spain – the land of sun, sangria and hair-raising screams. At least that’s what the country’s film directors would have you believe based on the successive supply of high-concept horrors to hit our screens care of the Costa del Sol. There have been gothic fantasies with unpleasant goats, documentaries of the undead with a recording SteadiCam, and now even Almodovar, Spanish cinema’s auteur, is jumping out of his skin to get in on the blood-curdling action. Julia’s Eyes, from writer-director Guillem Morales, is the latest addition to the Iberian nasties and reunites him with Guillermo del Toro, on producing duty, and star Belén Rueda, who’d previously cowered behind Morales’ castanets in 2007’s The Orphanage.
Rueda is Julia, an astronomer suffering from a degenerative disease slowly robbing her of her sight. When her equally plighted twin Sara takes her own life, Julia begins to suspect foul play and investigates her sister’s romance with a man nobody can seem to recall. Things take a distinct turn for the sinister and it’s not long before Julia undergoes an experimental transplant surgery to restore her eyesight. Cared for by nurse Iván in her sister’s gloomy home, Julia will have to hone her remaining senses to figure out just what’s going bump in the night.
