By the time of his death in 2015, Wes Craven’s reputation as one of the finest film-makers of his kind was firmly cemented. The horror maestro had a knack for transforming schlocky material into A-grade popcorn entertainment. Such is the case in Red Eye, the antepenultimate work of his career, and arguably the most underrated film in his oeuvre.
Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams) is the manager of the Lux Atlantic Hotel, a premium resort on the Miami shoreline with a clientele that includes, as the film begins, the deputy secretary of homeland security. Onboard an overnight flight home, Lisa’s seemingly innocuous seatmate Jackson Rippner (a psychotically blue-eyed Cillian Murphy) reveals himself to be a member of a domestic terrorist ring and embroils her in a conspiracy to assassinate the high-ranking official.
