‘See No Evil’ at 20: In Defense of the Nasty Slasher Classic

When I started brainstorming my angle in honor of See No Evil’s 20^th anniversary, my initial idea was to frame it as a bad relic of the past I can’t help but love. That backhanded impulse should be beyond me, though it’s often the first—and easiest—way back into something I’d loved as a kid that otherwise, on account of age, doesn’t hold up two decades later. Yet, when I revisited Gregory Dark’s grimy slasher, the debut from WWE Films, I regretted thinking See No Evil was even remotely conceptually bad. It’s not even a guilty pleasure, something so bad, it’s good. It’s simply good, a relic of the past, yes, but one with more style and grit to spare than most horror movies—especially slashers—released today.

WWE Films, as its name suggests, had a simple goal. Put their storied wrestlers in motion pictures. The studio, which boasts the likes of The Marine (John Cena), The Condemned (Steve Austin), and The Call (David Otunga), often traded in genre fare, the theatrics of which were a natural fit for wrestlers, who themselves are innately theatrical in their lore and performances. And See No Evil is certainly theatrical. It’s big, ugly, and biblical in scale and intention. Kane (Glenn Jacobs) plays Jacob Goodnight—though he’s unnamed in the first film– a hulking, deranged serial killer whose modus operandi is rooted in biblical abuse he suffered as a child.

Jacob Goodnight is presumably killed by Officer Frank Williams (Steven Vidler) in the cold open, but See No Evil is just getting started, so of course, the Michael Myers wannabe will be back for more slaughter to come. That slaughter comes in the form of a quasi-progressive anti-recidivism program tasking a group of low-level offenders with a weekend hotel cleaning. Successfully complete the program, and they can anticipate a month shaved from their sentence.

See No Evil is a product of its time, and I mean that in largely positive terms. Think of a slasher released today whose leads would be so messy, so down-and-dirty? You probably can’t. One of the survivors is a former pimp (Luke Pegler), first destined to be quick carnage, later a hero unwilling to abandon his fellow prisoners. They’re all conventionally attractive, yes, but there’s an edge to them that feels more earnest than most modern attempts at subversive, horror counterculture.