Aaron's Blood Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.0

Aaron's Blood Blu-ray Movie Review

Parental Terrors

Reviewed by Michael Reuben June 7, 2017

Tommy Stovall is a do-it-yourself independent filmmaker based in Sedona, Arizona, the town that supplied the name and locale for his previous film. When financing for a project that Stovall was preparing to shoot in the summer of 2016 failed to materialize, the director's producing partner suggested he try his hand at a vampire script. The result, written, directed, edited and co-produced by Stovall and starring his son in a pivotal role, received a limited theatrical release in June 2017. Specialty distributor Gravitas Ventures has now issued a home video version of Aaron's Blood that would make an interesting addition to horror afficionados' libraries, but is hobbled by a few technical anomalies and the unfortunate choice of burned media instead of pressed.

Aaron Diaz (James Martinez, who played Gus Fring's doomed partner on Breaking Bad) and his son, Tate (Trevor Stovall), are still mourning the death of Tate's mother (and Aaron's wife) a year earlier. No specifics are given, but the loss was sudden and unexpected. Tate also labors under the additional burden of suffering from hemophilia, and when an encounter with a school bully (Noah Heekin) sends him to the hospital, the injury is life-threatening. After a blood transfusion, however, Tate makes a sudden and miraculous recovery. And it's more than a recovery: it's an enhancement. His vision is now perfect without glasses, and his strength and agility are hugely increased. When the bully hassles Tate again, he receives a much-deserved comeuppance.

But Tate's new abilities come with side effects. He no longer wants (or can tolerate) solid food, which makes him suspiciously ill. His pulse rate is unnaturally low and heading lower. He gets sunburned from the briefest exposure. And yes, the boy has acquired a thirst for human blood so intense that he can barely contain it.

Aaron's Blood mixes familiar vampire tropes with a surprisingly effective family drama, as Aaron becomes increasingly desperate in his quest to cure Tate's "condition", even as he can scarcely believe that it’s real. Key supporting players include Tate's sympathetic but clueless sister, Karen (Farah White); a serene hospital chaplin, Father Kane (David Castellvi); and a local bartender named Earl (Michael Chieffo), who has a unique sideline. Stovall gets compelling performances from the actors, and he applies gore effects sparingly but effectively. His sole misstep is an overuse of that hoary device in which a character experiences something terrible only to awake and discover that it was all a dream! The technique has been exploited so often in horror and suspense films that even one occurrence is risky, but Stovall employs it repeatedly—and to ever-diminishing effect. After the first nightmare, you spot the later ones immediately and wish he'd just get on with the story.

Aaron's Blood Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Aaron's Blood is the first and, to date, the only feature-length project shot by cinematographer Taylor Camarot. According to IMDb, Camarot worked with the Blackmagic Cinema Camera, which is supposed to combine high quality with portability and a small size. Certainly the image on Gravitas Ventures' 1080p, AVC-encoded BD-R reflects the usual virtues of digital capture, with a clean, sharp, detailed image that is mostly free from noise or interference. I say "mostly", because there's occasional banding and also because there are several notable instances of dropped frames (e.g., in the scenes of moving vehicles during the opening credits). The latter appears to be a defect in the original photography and not in the transfer to Blu-ray. (According to some quick research, dropped frames are a known issue with the Blackmagic Cinema Camera.) Otherwise, the Blu-ray image aptly conveys the sense of an everyday world into which vampirism unexpectedly intrudes, and captures the film's sharp distinction between brightly sunny Arizona surroundings and the dark recesses of hospital rooms, deserted churches and dimly lit homes where evil may suddenly strike. Gravitas has mastered Aaron's Blood at an average bitrate of 27.09 Mbps, which is generous for digitally originated material.

Aaron's Blood Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Aaron's Blood arrives on Blu-ray with a stereo soundtrack encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0, and I would normally assume this to be the original format, except that the jacket copy specifies 5.1. An inquiry to the press contact for Gravitas did not produce an explanation for this discrepancy. In any case, the 2.0 track provides a nice sense of dispersed ambiance when played through a surround decoder. The dialogue is clearly rendered, and the dynamic range is broad enough to provide punch and impact to various "jump" moments. The effective electronic horror score is credited to Jakub Gawlina, who has scored numerous video games and whose work here sometimes reminded me of the Michel Rubini/Reds' work on Michael Mann's Manhunter.

ADDENDUM: I have now heard back from the press contact, who advises that the jacket copy is erroneous and that the BD-R contains the film's original stereo track.

Aaron's Blood Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• BTS B-Roll (1080p; 1:78:1; 6:22): On-scene and on-set footage, with no commentary or identification of personnel.



• BTS Introduction (1080p; 1.78:1; 4:49): Promotional in nature, this featurette includes interviews with the principal cast.



• Making Of (1080p; 1.78:1; 4:41): Also promotional in nature, this featurette includes interviews behind the camera, notably Stovall and co-producer Marc Sterling.



• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 2.35:1; 2:18): Five brief scenes, which are not separately listed or selectable. None of them significantly alters or expands the plot.



• Trailer (1080p; 2.35:1; 2:01): Straightforward and effective.

Aaron's Blood Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Horror films are a dime a dozen these days (even accounting for inflation), and vampires are among the genre's most overused villains, but Aaron's Blood manages to inject some much-needed life into these undead proceedings, thanks mostly to the quality of its performances. Between the use of burned media (an unfortunate choice by Gravitas) and the unresolved issues regarding the soundtrack, I can't recommend the disc, but the movie is worth your time, and it can already be found on several streaming services.