SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Usamah Harvey The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

NateWatchesCoolMovies The thriller genre loves it's blind girls. Particularly ones who are being stalked by some kind of malevolent force, be it supernatural force or simple home invader. From The Eye, Blind Fear and more, it's a classic setup with not always classy results. 1994's Blink, however, is so mature in its setup of the premise that when the thriller elements come along, they almost seem out of place. Almost. Madeleine Stowe brings her doe eyed resilience to the role of Emma Brody, a musician who has been blind since she was a very little girl, following a sickening incident with her mother. She is undergoing a radical transplant to restore her vision, which will give her the corneas of a deceased person. Stowe handles the early scenes of seeing for the first time in decades phenomenally, really urging the audience to experience it alongside her. There's just one problem with this little operation: the eyes she receives belonged to someone who either witnessed a murder, or was crazy, because soon she is seeing threatening figures following her, and violent acts she isn't sure are even real or not. The film refuses to be an outright thriller and won't touch any horror tropes with a ten foot pole, rooted in the notion that it's a drama that some scary elements have just happened to wander through on their way to a cheaper, more exploitative piece. Stowe is never the helpless waif, showing strong intuition and the will to persevere. She is assisted by rowdy, jaded police detective John Hallstrom (Aiden Quinn) whom develops romantic feelings for her, his brash tactics initially crashing and burning in the face of her fiercely independent nature. James Remar gives a nice understated turn as his partner, Detective Ridgely. It's nice grounded work from all, in a film that plays it dead straight, despite its spooky subject matter. Definitely the one to go for in the sub genre.

Spikeopath Blink is directed by Michael Apted and written by Dana Stevens. It stars Madeleine Stowe, Aidan Quinn, James Remar, Paul Dillon, Peter Friedman, Bruce A. Young and Laurie Metcalfe. Music is by Brad Fiedel and cinematography by Dante Spinotti. Story sees Stowe as Emma Brody, who after being blind for 20 years receives a double cornea transplant that mostly restores her sight. However, she's subject to something known as "retroactive vision" which means that what her blurry vision at first sees doesn't register to the brain sometime later. A problem, now, because there has been a murder committed upstairs at her apartment complex and she's the only "eye" witness to the murderer.It's all set up to be a standard woman in peril thriller, the kind that drops into the cinema on a yearly basis. But thanks to some technical smarts and a terrific performance by Stowe, Blink is one of the better films from this particular sub-genre. It's a bit saggy in the middle, where, probably thanks to the success of Basic Instint and Sea of Love in the five years previously, Apted and co try to turn it into an "erotic" thriller as Stowe and Quinn's surly copper form a relationship, but it's genuinely tense and the novelty of Emma's unusual affliction never wears thin.Apted and his team have devised a unique visual effect that lets us see the world through Emma's unusual eyes, and the result is very unsettling. Blurry focus blends with wobbly vision and this allows for scary moments that stretch the concept across the films running time. It's of course a hokey premise, and the formula at the core of the plot is nothing new, but the character of Emma, coupled with her "affliction" is. Emma is no poor victim looking for sympathy, she's spunky, sexy and not suffering fools gladly. She lives as an independent, plays fiddle in a Celtic rock band (The Drovers playing themselves) and is full of feminine whiles. Stowe really gets to grips with the character and convinces fully. Quinn is OK, plays sarcastic and moody with ease, while Apted has a keen eye for the Chicago locale and Spinotti's photography is gorgeous in colour tones.It needed a better, more frantic, ending, and that over played mid-section stops it from being from the top draw of thrillers, but otherwise it's well worth a look for potential first time viewers. 7/10

xredgarnetx Madeline Stowe of "The Last of the Mohicans" fame stars in BLINK as a feisty musician who undergoes a new type of eye surgery to restore her vision, lost in childhood at the hands of an abusive mom. As her vision slowly returns, she runs afoul of a killer who is convinced she has gotten a good look at him, and is now after her. She tells the cops, who not surprisingly laugh at her. The irony is, she only sees the killer in a sort of surreal way, with the camera serving as Stowe's vision and showing us what amounts to little more than phantasms. She also suffers from mental time gaps with her returning vision. Stowe ends up falling for burly cop Aidan Quinn, who decides she's telling the truth and protects her. There's a nice trick at the very end involving the killer. Suspenseful and stylish for its time, with a thoughtful performance by Stowe.

The_Void The main reason I saw this film was not because I thought the plot sounded interesting, or even because of the fact that it stars the beautiful Madeleine Stowe; the reason I saw it is purely down to the fact that I remembered seeing posters for it in the video store when I was a kid. With such a nonchalant viewing reason behind me, it probably wont come as a surprise that I wasn't expecting a lot from this film; and it's a good job as Blink is a highly disappointing thriller with numerous problems and very little to recommend it for. The plot is not particularly original, and focuses on the idea of a blind woman in peril. There is a slight twist on this theme; as the woman in this film is not quite blind; in fact, she is the benefactor of a breakthrough 'eye transplant', which re-enables her sight after over twenty years of being blind. A side effect of this treatment is the fact that she sees some things 'by memory', and this is a problem when she apparently witnesses a murder as she's not sure if it's real or just flashback...The film would be described a 'psychological thriller', and the reason why these films are often hit and miss is the main problem with this one. A film like this really needs a central character that is easy to get into; and while I believe that Madeleine Stowe is a great actress, she's not given the room to do much with this role. The plotting is not good at all, and is often all over the place; and too much of the film focuses on the tentative (and boring) relationship between the central character and a policeman on the case. This relationship feels extremely phoney, and since it makes up a large proportion of the running time of the film; it becomes a pretty big problem. There are a few decent scenes; Stowe is very good despite the poor material, though I would have preferred a lot more suspense, given that this is really supposed to be a thriller. The ending is pulled off fairly nicely, though its impact is lessened by the tepid film that preceded it. For a far better take on a similar theme, see the fantastic 'Wait Until Dark', and skip this.