Blind Eye
2024 · 7m · UK
Directed by Lyndon Henley Hanrahan
Isaac, desperate to win back his ex-boyfriend, starves and overworks his body in pursuit of physical perfection — even as his eyesight begins to fail. A 16mm body-horror short about body dysmorphia, eating disorders, and the self-destructive ache for approval inside a queer relationship.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Body horror as romantic tragedy is catnip, sure, but Hanrahan's real move is letting the metaphor eat itself—vision loss isn't standing in for dysmorphia, it IS dysmorphia, and watching a queer kid literally stop seeing himself while chasing someone else's gaze is genuinely unsettling in ways that feel earned rather than provoked.
The 16mm stock grounds this in a lineage of formally rigorous body cinema—Cronenberg's viscera, perhaps, but filtered through a queer specificity that insists on tenderness alongside horror; the editing rhythm between intimate moments and deterioration suggests a filmmaker aware of how form can mirror obsession itself.
The decision to let the image literally degrade and blur as Isaac's vision fails—not as cheap effect, but as the film's visual grammar itself becoming unreliable—transforms what could've been a heavy-handed metaphor into something tactile and disorienting that no amount of budget could've faked with clarity.
Reviews
Powerfully explores themes of body dysmorphic disorder, mental health, eating disorders... beautifully uses its 16mm ratio, claustrophobic cinematography and impressive sound design.
A self-destructive search for approval and perfection.
Festivals
- Watersprite Film Festival 2024, Best Cinematography