SXSW's "Dead Eyes:" When Ambition Outweighs Execution.

Austin Texas' South by Southwest is one of the premiere film festivals in the entertainment industry. Every March they showcase new and impressive projects for audiences to enjoy. One genre the festival has become known for is horror due to their "Midnighters" category of shorts and features. One of those Midnighters this year was Richard E. Williams' Dead Eyes, an Australian horror feature shot entirely from a first person point of view. The horror genre has always been on the forefront when it comes to new innovations in the world of film, unfortunately Dead Eyes is another case where the crews' ambition overtakes their storytelling ability.

Shot in Australia by Richard E. Williams and Julian Panetta, Dead Eyes is a horror film taking place from the first person POV of main character, Sean. With his friends and fiancée, Sean sets out into a remote forest hoping to locate his missing father after the recent death of his younger sister, Lily. It is in this forest that Sean must confront his inner demons and find out the shocking truth about his father.

Dead Eyes feels very similar to classic found-footage horror films, especially The Blair Witch Project. Its unique first person perspective made audiences at SXSW compare watching the film to playing a video game. Personally, the deep forest setting and supernatural subject matter reminded me a lot of Slender: The Eight Pages.

Dead Eyes was not originally on my radar at SXSW this year, but upon hearing about it taking place from a first person point of view, I immediately reserved a ticket on my last day. After all, 2026 has already proved to be a great year for Australian film after all the films that premiered at Sundance. I was impressed by the film's unique concept and I'm always down to support new voices in horror. Unfortunately the shooting style ended up being the only unique thing about Dead Eyes.

People tend to be soft when it comes to criticizing films at festivals like SXSW. After all, these are largely independent projects made by people making an honest living, showing their art to the world. That did not stop audiences from absolutely tearing Richard E. Williams' project to shreds on Letterboxd though. Despite its brief time in the spotlight, Dead Eyes is already one of the worst reviewed films at SXSW this year.

The problem is that the film relies too heavy on its original shooting style instead of the story it is trying to tell. Without spoiling anything, the plot of Dead Eyes is confusing at best and downright unintelligible at worst. It almost feels like the plot of a forgotten horror game for the Playstation 2. As a story, it's disorganized to the point where I found myself baffled by the time the credits rolled. Not to mention Dead Eyes isn't particularly well-acted by its cast either.

The truth is. Dead Eyes is a debut feature and it feels like it. Williams' storytelling ability simply isn't polished enough yet, but there is enough potential that makes me confident he could have a better follow-up project. It may be a fun watch to sit down and consume with your friends but South by Southwest had too many amazing films this year for a miss like this to go unnoticed.

Despite my distaste for Dead Eyes, I cannot help but admire the ambition of the cast and crew for bringing a feature film to life all from a first person perspective. Even though that's the only original aspect of the project, Richard E. Williams and company should be proud of themselves for not only creating a full length picture, but getting into a festival as big as SXSW. Hopefully this film will find its audience in the future like last year's Good Boy, unfortunately I won't be part of that audience.