6.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
A couple on a trip through the Irish countryside find themselves hunted by a creature who only attacks at night.
Starring: Niamh Algar, Stephen Cromwell, Gerry O'Brien, Ged MurrayHorror | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.86:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 16-bit)
English: LPCM 2.0 (48kHz, 16-bit)
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
As a kid, Irish writer/director Conor McMahon loved Peter Jackson's Bad Taste and Sam Raimi's Evil Dead 2. As a result, his first films were horror comedies like Stitches, which involved a homicidal clown who returned from the dead to settle old scores (the very description is comical). In his fourth feature, however, McMahon wanted to try a straight horror film. The 2014 thriller, From the Dark, is traditional creature feature about a couple stranded in the countryside who find themselves fighting off a supernatural attacker of unknown origin. The plot is classic, and the execution reflects an intimate knowledge of horror tropes, but the final product feels like a short film stretched out to feature length.
From the Dark was shot on the Red Epic by Michael Lavelle, who was part of the crew on McMahon's Stitches. The camera was selected after testing several digital models for their ability to capture dark images without introducing noise or "graininess", especially in active, handheld shots. MPI Media's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, which was presumably sourced from digital files, presents a sharply detailed and clear image in the early daylight scenes, when the picturesque countryside provides a unique but oddly disquieting background for both the "teaser" opening and the beginning of Sarah and Mark's road trip. When night falls, the image becomes very dark, and good calibration of one's display is essential, because creatures in the night are often just a different shade of black from the surrounding darkness. As the action shifts to the farmhouse, the action is often deliberately confusing, and the shots are close and handheld, but the image itself remains stable. Colors are mostly dull earth tones, with an occasional wash of something rich and distinctive, such as the red of blood or the blue of the sky as dawn approaches. (The bright green of the Irish countryside appears only briefly in the opening scenes, before night erases it.) MPI has encoded From the Dark on a BD-50 with a high bitrate of 30.00 Mbps, which is a welcome change from the common approach of tight compression with digitally acquired films.
From the Dark's 5.1 soundtrack, encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA, offers a fine mix of environmental sounds on the moor and plenty of creaking, rattling, footsteps, crashes and various sounds of appliances and other household objects once Sarah and Mark reach the farm. A tractor generates some memorable sonics, and of course the attacking creatures have their roars, screams, murmurs and heavy breathing. Dialogue, which is minimal after the initial introduction of Sarah and Mark, is clear and intelligible; subtitles are available for anyone who has difficulty with the Irish pronunciation. The tense score is by Ray Harman (whose many credits include the first two seasons of George Gently ). As usual with MPI releases, an alternate PCM 2.0 track is included.
McMahon is a thoughtful filmmaker with an obvious passion for the horror genre, but From the Dark doesn't add up to an effective whole, despite some interesting parts. MPI's Blu-ray is technically superior, so that anyone who is curious should not be disappointed by the presentation.
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