If it wasn’t for the fact that Blumhouse’s 2023 horror movie Unseen tackles some rather unsavory and serious themes, you could easily mistake it for something lighter. It has zany over-the-top characters when it’s not busy being completely serious. Unseen begins with a young, drugged woman called Emily (Midori Francis, Good Boys) poised at the hands of her stalker ex-boyfriend who refuses to allow the breakup she initiated to continue. The horror and thriller movie can be placed in a similarly etched-out premise to 2022’s See For Me, only in this scenario Emily isn’t blind. She does however have a severe eyesight deficit, corrected with glasses. Without them, she might as well be blind.

When push comes to shove, Emily’s ex-boyfriend Charlie (Michael Patrick Lane, Dynasty) ends up in a round of physical violence as she tries desperately to escape. With her glasses broken in the scuffle, she runs into the surrounding forest. Opening scenes land a suitable amount of tension and the on-trend narrative prop of technology comes swiftly into play. However unlike films such as Searching and Missing, Unseen fails to connect its survival cat-and-mouse playing field with palatable side characters. It also superficially connects a random recently called phone number to her plight. Yes, like in the movie The Call but with far less plausibility. Noticeably though, I’m fairly certain I could call an emergency number even if I couldn’t see.

Unseen Online & On The Phone

Split screens and a battle to survive using insight from Emily’s only line to staying alive ensues. Her coincidental savior who answers her desperate phone call works in a gas station with what can only be described as a redneck boss. While Emily is coming to terms with having been in an abusive relationship that she needs to again escape from, Joelene has been suffering a different kind of assault. Touching on themes of hatred and racism, writers Salvatore Cardoni and Brian Rawlins nick the surface. The two main characters are having a bit of a rough time. They are both confronted with the crappiest type of people coming at them from all sides.

It would be easy to engage in the idea that there are prominent themes at play here such as in RogerEbert.com’s review of Unseen. Concentrating on the intentions of what the characters look like instead of plot holes or misguided scripting as a cause for the movie being unlikeable at times. There’s nothing wrong with that I guess but surely appropriating a willful disregard for race issues isn’t what these low-budget filmmakers were going for. Instead, I think it was more about contrast.

Horror Movie Rules

With the serious implications for the “Unseen” movie’s central cast who are both of Asian American descent, alongside its director being from a similar background, perhaps the commonly used stereotypical horror fodder was an easy go-to here. Plonk that with the fact that police are always useless in this genre niche and I’m not sure the angle was supposed to be so nuanced. I certainly don’t think it was a platform for entitlement or the rights of BIPOC. I could be wrong, but Unseen was made during the pandemic. Casting professionals probably just chose the most convincingly angry available posh-looking lady they could find. To further back this up, her hubby has no speaking lines.

“Unseen” is not perfect. It’s blatantly generic with the ideas we have seen in plenty of other films. It’s also colorful, filled with comeuppance, and suppressed rage while also being totally popcorn-flick-worthy. And we like that.