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When an unsuspecting family pays their new neighbors a visit to welcome them to the neighborhood, an impromptu dinner invitation turns into a night of brutality, degradation, and murder. But it soon becomes evident that the horrifying events are the product of a very disturbed mind.
There’s no way to discuss the content of this film without revealing major plot elements. So, if you want to view this film spoiler free, skip this section.
Warning! Spoilers ahead!
“Eyes Beyond” begins with the Rogers family, mother Vivian (Kelly-Marie Murtha), father Henry (Robert Nolan), and twenty-something daughter Abigaile (Danielle Barker), approaching the house of their new neighbors, Gabriel (Daniel Reininghaus) and Adam (Evan Eisenstadt) Morales, to welcome them to the neighborhood. Gabriel, as played by writer-director Reininghaus, comes across as a polite, unassuming, gentle soul, who's pleasantly surprised by the unexpected visit. His brother Adam, wearing a chef’s hat appears, and Gabriel introduces him to the family. Abigaile offers them a housewarming gift of culinary knives (!), and Gabriel invites them in for dinner.
While waiting for their hosts, who are presumably in the kitchen making dinner, the Rogers family sits at the dining room table. Henry makes a couple of rude comments about the brothers lack of “real” plates (the place setting consists of disposable plates, sort of ironic given Gabriel’s later comments that he’s "eco-friendly”). Once Gabriel and Adam emerge from the kitchen, they and the family engage in small talk, discussing what each person does for a living. This scene, like the one before it, was devoid of tension. There’s no dramatic conflict, which is essential to maintain audience interest. Considering Gabriel "knows" a dark secret about the family (although this isn't revealed until later), the scene would have worked better if his dialogue was filled with subtext, indicating he knew something. It would have added a layer of discomfort, and thus tension, to the scene. Instead, he never lets on to the Rogers, or the audience, that he knows anything.
Whether he meant to or not, the director has us identifying with the Rogers family, not Gabriel, even though he turns out to be the main character. Gabriel, you see, is imagining everything that happens because he is suffering from mental illness, although it's never stated explicitly which one. According to the movie's IMDB page it's Bipolar Disorder, but since such hallucinations are not a symptom of Bipolar, I have to assume he has some sort of delusional paranoia, perhaps driven by paranoid Schizophrenia. It's important to understand the difference since there's enough misunderstanding about mental illnesses like Bipolar Disorder. Because we don't learn that this was all in Gabriel's mind until the end of the movie, a sense of confusion relating to character motivation sets in. It’s important to establish that this is Gabriel’s story. Without this knowledge, I could only assume that what took place was "real". So, rather than experiencing and understanding Gabriel’s pain, I viewed him like the family did, as a violent predator.
Which brings us to the most disturbing scene in “Eyes Beyond”. As the family begins eating and drinking, a transition occurs. It's implied that the Rogers are drugged, and when Henry and Vivian come to they are wearing hospital smocks and are duct-taped to their chairs. Abigaile is still unconscious, although we don't see her at first. The brothers, now dressed in black, have apparently undergone major personality transplants as they giggle and canoodle together, mocking the terrified cries of their soon-to-be victims. Ignoring the Rogers' pleas for mercy, the violence escalates suddenly as the brothers bend Abigaile over the table, stabbing her hands to it with the same knives she'd given to them earlier. While she's pinned to the table, Adam rapes her. Soon after, he strangles her, which is followed by both brothers mutilating Henry. Finally, after Gabriel returns from performing "emergency surgery" on Henry, he explains to Vivian that he and Adam are doing this because of something the Rogers' family did and that they had it coming. However, Gabriel doesn't elaborate, which caused me to assume there really wasn't a reason other than the brothers were doing this for their own twisted pleasure.
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