Castle Keep Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		1.5
Audio		2.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		1.5

Castle Keep Blu-ray Movie Review

Mill Creek has released the 1969 film 'Castle Keep,' directed by Sydney Pollack, to the Blu-ray format. The disc features poor 1080p video and bland 2.0 lossless audio. No extras are included. At time of writing, this release is exclusive to a two film bundle that also includes Pollack's 'Bobby Deerfield.'

Castle Keep Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Mill Creek brings Castle Keep to Blu-ray and the image is not impressive. An opening montage is very speckled and worn. The print deterioration evidences diminish from there, but never entirely disappear after that, so at least there's that "plus" for the image. However, nothing about the transfer can really be called a "plus." In fact, it's quite a disappointment. The image is filled with significant macroblocking. Every shot, scene, and sequence shows some degree of chunkiness, leaving behind any semblance of smooth and pure film in favor of a horribly compressed disaster that may not stand as the absolute worst the format has ever produced, or even that Mill Creek has ever released, but it's definitely macroblocking city here. Worse, the image is hopelessly flat and lifeless. There's no complexity to military uniforms, natural exteriors, or castle interiors. It's all very smooth and inorganic. Colors are bland and flat. There's no punch or vividness of any kind, and even white snow looks dull and fatigued. Black levels are poor and skin tones are sloppy. This is not a good looking image in any way.

Castle Keep Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 lossless soundtrack offers nothing of real sonic value. It gets the job done but with very little in terms of bells and whistles. Dialogue does image well enough to center and spoken word clarity suffices, but that's about as good as dialogue gets. Some gunshots offer a fair sense of volume but very little richness or authenticity or stage filling power. Music sounds muddled and lacking distinction. Music does, at least, stretch fairly well along the front. Ambient effects are mostly for show and don't do anything to really define an area. The track gets listeners through with bare minimum effort and definition.

Castle Keep Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements on the disc.

Castle Keep Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Castle Keep introduces some originality to the World War II genre but never quite puts it all together in the context of its ensemble cast or in its collection of ideas. It's an interesting and watchable film, but a flawed experience nevertheless. The Blu-ray is pretty bad: awful video, subpar audio, and no extras make for a three strikes and you're out sort of final word on the matter.