MovieChat Forums > Sight (2008) Discussion > Ugh...(spoilers)....?

Ugh...(spoilers)....?


This movie is a freaking mess. It's my understanding that Dana Simmons was Paul and uh, Young Dana's, aunt. You know this because in Paul's address book near the end it has "Aunt Dana's" address (who Jeffrey had just, ahem, visited) and "Sis's" address AKA "Young Dana" (we never actually learn her name). Wasn't the plot confusing enough without having two different "Dana's?"

Anyways...what I was able to get from all this is that Jeffrey does in fact see ghosts. In order to better understand his condition he goes to visit some sort of witch doctor (Young Dana and Paul's dad) who sees spirits like Jeffrey does. But the witch doctor gets possessed, attacks Jeffrey and in self defense Jeffrey kills him. What is NOT clear is whether this happens before or after he meets "Young Dana." I GUESS it happens before. In which case my conclusion is that Young Dana and Paul, knowing Jeffrey is not right in the head (having apparently been released from the hospital after the attack by the aforementioned witch doctor-Paul and Young Dana's father-whereby I GUESS he was found not guilty of murder by reason of his self defense wounds) decide to I GUESS lure Jeffrey into a private setting so they can exact their revenge on him for their father's death. Whew, A LOT of guessing here since the plot explains so little.

Assuming this is all correct, we flash forward two years where Jeffrey comes out of his baseball bat induced coma intent on finding young "Dana" (which probably isn't even her real name, maybe she just decided to use her aunt's name so the cops couldn't pin Jeff's beating on her and her brother Paul). She isn't really missing, it's just that her name probably isn't actually Dana. That's why no one recalls knowing a "young" Dana, just an older one. Still guessing here.

So evidently Jeffrey kills the "witch doctor" in self defense, then later kills "Aunt Dana" (witch doctor's sister?) possibly by accident depending on which flash back was real; either she fell on the knife she attacked Jeffrey with (guilty conscience? maybe she was in on the beating he got?) or he killed her during a "black out." So he finds Paul finally, confronts him and Paul attacks Jeffrey who fires off a shot in self defense (there's that term again) and another one just for good measure. That makes three dead bodies so far by Jeffrey's hands. BUT WAIT! Was the thug who tried to mug him dead, or was he just unconscious after Jeffrey whacks him with his cane? The movie never explains. Also, did Jeffrey kill his uncle? Maybe, the movie never explains.

Jeffrey had a loaded gun and thought he saw his father's ghost. Did he shoot his dad's ghost accidentally hitting his uncle? Evidently he did, since he goes to his uncle's next door neighbor's house to get a ride to the hospital...which he surely does by stealing the dude's car. So was the uncle wounded or dead? WHO KNOWS!? So we have definitely three, possibly five dead bodies if you count the uncle and the thug (it's a glass-half-empty thing). Conclusion: Jeffrey does see ghosts but he is ALSO crazy.

The writer(s) seem to leave it up to the viewer as to whether he has killed all of these people justifiably or in malice. He has a chance to murder Young Dana in cold blood but chooses not to and sets the gun down. She grabs it and BLAM! shoots him dead. She calls the cops but before she can explain her emergency Jeffrey's ghost appears and, I GUESS, kills her. It never says. So that's definitely three, possibly six dead bodies curtousey of Jeffrey. Who knows, maybe he killed his own aunt as well. NO WAIT! He killed his mom too in child birth so that's at least FOUR! What a craptastic plot. And why are all these ghosts so pissed at him, he didn't do anything to them! And what the hell is up with the ghost that drags Old Dana into the closet? Did the ghost kill her or did Jeffrey kill her or did she fall on her knife and kill herself?

I appreciate movies that try to keep the viewer guessing, but so much of what I can figure out from this movie is exactly that: GUESSES. I have no idea if I'm right or not! This movie is so horribly edited it's sad. Also, I could barely make out the dialogue because the voice tracks were so low, yet all the music and other sounds effects were too loud! The acting was ok, but honestly how do movies like this ever get picked up for distribution? I'll admit there were some cool ghost scenes (the wheel chair kid, the first time Jeffrey hears his dad's ghost in the bathroom AFTER he shoots himself and of course the end where Jeffrey becomes a ghost himself), but those scenes are not nearly enough to save this movie. And the lighting? It was either to bright or too dark. Just like the sound, it was either one extreme or the other. Ugh. My brain hurts.

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psychosemantic hits the nail on the head. This film is a yarn of confusion which leaves you dizzy in the end. Not a single character in this film is redeeming and not a single happy moment occurs. It was a convoluted puzzle of bleakness and despair. There is no denying that it was bad. But by the same token, it had style and it was effective. It had the ability to disarm and make its audience jump suddenly with fright. The business of Aunt Dana was especially haunting to me. She is a poor visually impaired older lady living alone in a tiny apartment. She has a ghoul residing in her closet and although she can’t see it or hear it (and presumably smell it), she could feel it as it struggles against her to keep the closet door open. To that, she tells Jeffrey that ‘damned closet door! Nothing ever gets fixed around here’. I wonder if Aunt Dana was summing up the film by saying that ‘nothing ever gets fixed around here’. Whether people found Sight to be a work of genius, or a piece of trash, this film was, in one word, disturbing.

smoke me a kipper. I'll be back for breakfast

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