Exciting news for all the Asian horror buffs out there; seems like Lions Gate’s brief return to horror importing continues in stride with the release of The Child’s Eye, a copy of which they sent out our way for review. I’ve been looking forward to this one since I first saw the trailers, but would the final product hold up?

The Child’s Eye takes us out to Thailand, where a group of friends who went out there find themselves stranded following a series of unexplained airport closures. With their only available refuge being a crumbling old building, they take advantage of said refuge and take what shelter they can find. But when they find out just what the building they’ve taken shelter in used to be, it’s going to set off a series of events that they may not survive.

Fair warning: this movie’s default language track is Cantonese, so you’ll need the subtitles, or be willing to switch over to the English language sound track. But if you can get around that, then you’re about get get a great shot of ghost story from no less a set of personages than the Pang Brothers, who have done a whole lot of horror filmmaking. And they’ve really done a doozy on this one, that’s for sure–they’ve managed to intersperse humor in with the sweet shot of ghost story, as well as a bit of political drama and even a bit of Thai culture, like the bit about trotter’s rice, a kind of pork dish.

Also, if you’ve got a 3D television, get your glasses on. This one was clearly, CLEARLY meant to be seen in 3D, as there are some great moments in here where the glasses would have come in handy.

All that aside for a moment, the end result is a pretty good slice of scary. The scares will start up in earnest about twenty minutes in, and continue at a pretty good clip for the rest of the movie. It won’t always make a lot of sense, but it will do some pretty impressive things and even put a couple good scares out there sufficient even for a horror veteran.

It’s not every movie that can scare you, make you laugh and even make you think a little bit, and that’s reason enough to recommend to this most everyone. The ending is a little on the schmaltzy side, but considering what went on before it, that’s not nearly as bad as you might think.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives The Child’s Eye an eight out of ten–it’s going to miss a few opportunities, but you should still be pretty happy with this one. A unique horror title that hits just about every possible note in the human condition and puts it all in a package with plenty of scares and a few good laughs? Hard not to like the idea of that. And The Child’s Eye does a fine job overall.