Film Review: Dan Da Dan: Evil Eye (English Dub)

Does trauma hold as much power as a ghost?

Dan Da Dan is a Japanese horror manga, anime, and film series involving the world of the supernatural with high school protagonists.  Season one of the anime is available to stream on Netflix, with the second season set to premiere on July 3.  The first film, First Encounter, which is a collection of the first season’s initial three episodes, debuted in 2024. Evil Eye similarly is the first three episodes of the second season. 

IMDb

Some quick backstory on the first season, which the beginning of Evil Eye also covers. High schoolers Momo (Abby Trott), Okarun (AJ Beckles) and an expanding cast of characters populate the show. Momo would normally not be caught together with the nerdy and alien obsessed Okarun in high school society, but a random encounter brings them together and, subsequently, they devise a plan for Momo to investigate an abandoned hospital (reportedly an alien hotspot) and for Okarun to check out an allegedly haunted tunnel. The season plays out with Momo and Okarun questing, surviving supernatural attacks, and being joined by other characters.

Evil Eye picks up with Momo and Okarun joining their friend Jiji (Aleks Le) in his hot springs town to investigate his supposedly haunted house. 

Does Evil Eye feel like three episodes of a show? Yes and no. The film doesn’t hide that it’s for the fans, but it does a good job of leading into the new story.  It does obviously leave off on a cliffhanger but several big budget films have done that recently, namely Dune, Dune: Part 2, and Wicked. In short, fans of the show and casual viewers should both find plenty to like.

But fans of the show should definitely not be disappointed - the animation is as stunning as ever, the English voice work is still charming, and the characters are their compelling usual selves. The horror is on display as well, with creepy visuals, a not-quite-right haunted house (and its landlords) and a downright heartbreaking and disturbing backstory for the titular "Evil Eye" antagonist. 

The antagonist's tragic backstory does a good job of not just representing his own trauma, but that of the town and our heroes. The townsfolk have been complicit in the villain’s suffering, and their misdeeds are quite literally built one on top of one another. So too does the trauma get passed down to the town’s families, eventually affecting Jiji.

January and February 2020 (or "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Blogging Again")

Hi there. I'm doing a post for TV and films I'm looking forward to / will be watching in Q1 2020 (really just January and February). This is also to finally share a schedule for Fear of Better Films (see below) for the recent future! If you'd like to participate just let me know! By the way, this post was written/edited super quick and sloppy. Just gotta finally get it done! That's kind of my 2020 motto...

January

The Outsider - January 12

Nora from Queens - January 22

Picard - January 23

February

Birds of Prey - February 7

Hunters - February 21

The Invisible Man - February 28

Honorable Mentions

NOS4A2 (I started this a while back and will finish it soon)
Joker (never saw it in the theater...I'll probably watch it this weekend)

So on to Fear of Better Films.

I wrote about this a bit in my post in October but I've started a new system of watching movies (God what's wrong with me) called Fear of Better Films. I watch the first 15 minutes of three different movies and then finish the one (at least) I like best. It probably goes without saying but I started this because of the plethora of good looking films out there (the word DEARTH popped into my head instead of plethora but that's the opposite of what I meant. Really wanted to use DEARTH though...).

I might start doing a more structured schedule (not sure what I even mean by that) but for now, here are the next few rounds I've randomly selected.

• Round 3
• The Pool
• Inside Llewyn Davis
• Days of Thunder
• Round 4
• Take Shelter
• My Week with Marilyn
• The Dead Don't Die
• Round 5 
• Only God Forgives
• The Discovery
• Rachel Getting Married
• Round 6 
• Guava Island
• Late Night
• The Last Black Man in San Francisco
• Round 7
• mid90s
• Major League
• P2
• Round 8
• In The Shadow of the Moon
• Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot
• Earthquake Bird

By the way, almost all of those are available on streaming services (here in the states, anyway). I started at round 3 above because I did a few official rounds (and many unofficial) before that. And if you'd like to join along for any of these rounds, just let me know. I'm curious to see if others would decide on the same films I do. Happy Watching!

October 2019

I seem to have an unwritten rule these days: Don't Write Anything on Your Blog.

But I'm breakin' that rule, baby.

I've been percolating a watchlist of horror films for this month, October, the best time of the year. Some are new (to me), and some will be rewatches. Check out my list, some of which I've already gotten to:

Full Watch

• Brightburn
• Child’s Play (2019)
• Crawl
• Little Monsters
• Pet Sematary ('19)
• The Burning
• Tigers Are Not Afraid

TV

• Castle Rock Season 2 
• Creepshow 

Fassbender Double Feature

• Eden Lake (I've heard it's great/underrated)
• The Snowman (I've heard it's terrible)

Rewatch

• Insidious
• The Blair Witch Project Franchise

Fear of Better Films

So I need to explain this a bit. Lately I've been watching the first 10 minutes of three different films. Whichever one (at least) I like the best gets finished. I'll be approaching a lot of the films on my list like this. I've randomly picked the combatants. And I'm actually upping each chunk to 15 minutes - I feel like that's a better amount of time. 

• Psycho II vs. Eye See You vs. The Hills Have Eyes ('77)
• Winner: Psycho II
• The Rezort vs. Cooties vs. Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse
• Winner: Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse
• Malevolent vs. The Vault vs. Wolf Creek
• Apostle vs. Julia's Eyes vs. The Blackcoat's Daughter
• The Endless vs. The Green Inferno vs. You Might Be The Killer
• Zombie vs. Black Christmas ('74) vs. Head Count
• Hell House LLC vs. In The Tall Grass vs. Mayhem
• Slice vs. I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House vs. In the Shadow of the Moon
• Kill List vs. Revenge vs. The Gallows
• The Silence vs. The Babysitter vs. Stage Fright

I obviously won't get to all of these but I'll have fun trying...