When most people think of legendary genre director Wes Craven, they always lean towards his work in horror franchises. From the meta slasher wave that Scream kicked off, to his two genre-defining Nightmare on Elm Street films, these are certainly what he’s most known for. While Craven technically has other underseen gems like the relentlessly bleak The Hills Have Eyes or The People Under the Stairs, it’s always been interesting to me that Red Eye was never really hotly talked about within his filmography until recently, when comparisons were made to 2025’s Drop. Now, even 20 years after its release, with plenty of other thrillers to compare it to, I wanted to take a deeper look into why Craven’s slick and sweat-inducing thrill ride still manages to be one of the best examples of a quick but impactful 85 minutes.
Story-wise, Red Eye’s setup begins simply, involving Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams) on an overnight flight to Miami with her seatmate, Jackson Ripper (Cillian Murphy). The two seem to hit it off at first until Ripper reveals a devious plot to use her as a tool for an assassination attempt on the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, with her father (Brian Cox) at risk if she doesn’t comply. One of the best aspects of Red Eye isn’t just its compact runtime, but also how clearly Wes understands the most clever ways to execute the genre’s tropes, making it more entertaining than predictable. The best example of this lies in where the movie spends the vast majority of its runtime, the plane itself. Craven is playing a bit with post 9/11 panic at the time and common fears of flying, with Lisa being afraid of flights, but it’s the way he connects horror and thriller elements that makes the sequences more thrilling. The cat-and-mouse elements of Lisa outsmarting the much more calculated and cold Jackson are elevated by not only the different scenarios in which Lisa is placed, but also the strength of both McAdams and Murphy as performers.
When I think about where this is best showcased, the entire portion of the film on the flight is able to make such great use of unique predicaments, especially in limited space. Every time Lisa tries to alert someone of the situation she’s in, whether through faking a book signature or using soap to write a message on the bathroom mirror, each setup is more creative than the last. Even the film’s more cheesy elements – loud, suspenseful music cues, or the out-of-place moments of humor in subplots and surrounding our two leads – are effective in giving it all a classic, slick thriller feel that isn’t nearly as present in films today. The melding of these moments mixed with Murphy’s chilling turn during this section and Craven’s razor-sharp genre sensibilities make for such tense moments of asking “Is she gonna make it?” that only the best type of thrillers create.
Even when the film’s third act delves into pure absurdity as Jackson chases Lisa in a full-on rollercoaster ride to her house, it remains extremely effective. Many, since the movie’s release, argue that the complete shift in tone is more jarring than fun, but I see it as another example of Craven being one of the greats at implementing tension. After Lisa brutally stabs Jackson in the neck with a pen on the plane in one of the film’s best moments, we enter a set piece throughout Lisa’s childhood home and the movie turns into a balls-to-the-wall slasher where Lisa uses everything at her disposal, from hockey sticks to high heels, to get the best of Jackson. It’s certainly a turn, but one that’s more than welcome for such a curvy genre piece.
When I first watched Red Eye, I always just saw it as a solid enough thriller with a handful of standout moments, but not something that would stick with me for a long period of time. It’s crazy looking back at it now that the film remains one of the best examples of how to craft such a lean and mean thrill ride that has absolutely no fat to it, and I appreciate it for that. While the film will never be quite as iconic as Craven’s Scream or Nightmare on Elm Street films, it will forever be cemented in my mind as one of the greatest filmmakers there was delivering what they do best: thrills and chills.
