Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Channel Zero: Season Three - Butcher's Block Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman September 10, 2020

If the Internet has given the world anything anything, it's not an endless stream of information or connectivity -- those things it's supposed to foster and facilitate -- but rather the seemingly random world of word stews that have in many ways both thrown the grammar rule book out the window and effectively, if not sometimes mind numbingly, jumbled words or the language for some sort of effect. Take "creepypasta," to the untrained ear a nonsensical meshing of two otherwise unrelated words (except, maybe, when "they're only noodles, Michael"). For the uninitiated, "creepypasta" is basically a term for digital urban legends, user created and web-based short stories detailing some kind of horrific violence or frightening situation: virtual campfire stories, basically. And in an age where the Internet is king and television shows are countless, it was an easy marriage for SyFy's Channel Zero, a collection of self contained TV seasons built around various "creepypasta." Season Three, Butcher's Block, was directed by Arkasha Stevenson and aired on SyFy from February-March 2018.

Alice (Olivia Luccardi), a young social worker, and her sister Zoe (Holland Roden), an on-and-off again drug addict with mental health issues, move to the City of Garrett where Alice hopes to launch her career, see her sister finally cleaned up, and avoid the mental health trappings that run in her family. The sisters move in with Louise (Krisha Fairchild), now a taxidermist and once a journalist who has spent much of her life piecing together the mysteries of Garrett, chiefly the various disappearances and unexplainable phenomena that seem to have connection to an area of town known as "Butcher's Block" and specifically the site of a long-abandoned meat packing facility owned and operated by the prestigious Peach family which up and disappeared some time ago.

Needless to say, there are strange things afoot in Garrett: horrible things, unexplainable things, pathways to dark truths best left ignored. There's a sense of dread hanging over the place, and Alice and Zoe feel it right away. But how much is illusion and how much is real? Is Garrett where Alice is finally going to join the ranks of the mentally unstable, like her sister and her mother before her, as has stressed her for much of her life? Is the town lore, and her stay with the peculiar Louise, only fueling a fire of her own making? Or is the town's sinister history going to catch up to its newest arrivals? The story is psychologically draining, much like its season two counterpart, building fear not through viscera alone but rather by braking down both interior and exterior safe spaces and building a relentlessly unsettling environment and a steady decay that drives the characters further into darkness more than the external calamities they may, and do, face. They are attacked physically and internally alike, the season doubling down on how it breaks down the characters and the world around them. Yet the season certainly does not eschew gore -- there's plenty here, enough to churn the stomach of even the most veteran gore hounds -- but it makes sure to amplify it with dense, draining emotional strains and narrative currents. Few TV shows are as bleak and depraved, and effectively so, as this.

This season's aesthetics may not quite match up to the quality found in season two, though such are ultimately trivial comparisons when season three is every bit the psychological tormentor as No-End House. Certainly the gore effects here are every bit as grotesque as they conceivably could be for television, including a skinless character and scenes of outright cannibalism. Arkasha Stevenson, who directs all six episodes, maintains a consistent balance and cadence, allowing the audience to draw in and never experience any tonal or textural shifts that would upset the flow and interrupt the psychological breaks and terrors that define the experience. Stevenson maintains excellent pacing, and while each episode holds its own narrative structure there's a critical cohesion to the broader experience, almost a cinematic flair and flavor that holds it together. It's amplified by solid performances, even if the characters still lack serious internal depth which may be the only true detriment to the greater season. They're defined well enough to carry the story and build up and break down their emotional states and responses, but they're not so complete as they might should have been in what is essentially a 4.5 hour miniseries.

Channel Zero: Season Three - Butcher's Block Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The 1080p presentation is all but identical to season two in terms of the transfer's pluses and minuses. Channel Zero: Season Three - Butcher's Block generally looks rather good, particularly at-a-glance. It reveals tight, well defined facial textures: pores, freckles, wrinkles, and makeup present with screen-commanding intimacy and intricacy in close-up. Gory visuals are likewise very revealing, particularly muscle and sinew and the like. Environments, interior and exterior both, show strong command of elemental detail. Colors are fine, favoring a pleasant neutrality that is in evidence in well-lit scenes while colors contending with shadow and darkness hold their own. Black levels are fairly deep and stable while skin tones appear accurate under various lighting and environmental influences. The image does have some drawbacks that might not bother casual viewers but are sure to trouble videophiles. Most prominently is macroblocking which appears with some regularity and density. Look at the 18:50 mark of episode one for the first serious example, here a creepy scene of someone inside the walls of a house, and again at the 31-minute mark in the same episode for example number two, a chase down an alleyway at night. Heavy banding appears at the 24 minute mark of episode two, one of several such occurrences throughout the season. Noise and aliasing are present but minimal. Despite some trouble areas the picture looks rather good in total.

Channel Zero: Season Three - Butcher's Block Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Like season two, Channel Zero: Season Three - Butcher's Block features a lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, the only audio option on the disc (there are no subtitles, either). Also like season two, this one's fairly prodigious and involved, a best case scenario for a lossy encode. The track is expressive and expansive, always stretching elements along the front, folding in the surrounds with frequently heavy engagement, and making the most of the subwoofer channel with hefty, but not overpowering, low end output. Music and effects details are of a good quality and ambient effects, whether natural sounds outdoors or various examples of squishy gore, offer quality engagement and feels for immersion. Dialogue is clear, well prioritized, and center positioned for the duration beyond a few examples of natural reverb opening it up to the rest of the soundstage.

Channel Zero: Season Three - Butcher's Block Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Channel Zero: Season Three - Butcher's Block contains no supplemental content. No DVD or digital copies are included. This release does not ship with a slipover. The artwork does include an inner print that displays a montage of available Blu-ray releases from Via Vision.

Channel Zero: Season Three - Butcher's Block Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Channel Zero's third season, in all it self-contained (gory) glory, is every bit as wonderful as the first two seasons. The story is engaging and the psychological breaks and emotional explorations are just as frightening as the season's intense, gruesome imagery. The writing and characters could have been a little sharper but the larger experience and intensity help to mask the season's shortcomings, which are in no way egregious to begin with. Via Vision's Blu-ray release of Channel Zero: Season Three - Butcher's Block contains no extras. Video is good enough and the 5.1 lossy soundtrack surpasses expectations for that encode. Recommended, though mostly based on show rather than the Blu-ray proper.