Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.0

Headspace Blu-ray Movie Review

Crazy is as crazy does.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 5, 2012

Hardcore fans of the original Star Trek accord a special place in their obsessed little hearts for the episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, which initially aired as the third outing of the series in September 1966 during its first season. What makes “Where No Man Has Gone Before” so interesting to Trekkers (and/or Trekkies—take your pick, depending on whether you’re one of them or not) is that the episode was actually shot as the second pilot for the series, after the incredible first pilot, “The Cage” (which ultimately was reedited as the two-parter “The Menagerie”, airing during the series’ third season), failed to get NBC’s greenlight go-ahead to series. “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, even though it aired third, has all sorts of little discrepancies since it was actually filmed before the series actually went into production, differences that may seem picayune to most but which have attained a cultlike cadre of analysts (how could it be otherwise with this legendary show?). It’s easy to spot some of the bigger oddities, like a different doctor than Bones, or Sulu being a physicist rather than a helmsman, or no sign of Uhura. But there are all sorts of other idiosyncracies, from sets to costumes to Kirk’s middle initial, which have been discussed ad infinitum by Trek aficionados for decades. The basic story of “Where No Man Has Gone Before” has entered the public consciousness in a way that very few other original Star Trek outings have, perhaps due as much to the guest starring turns by Gary Lockwood and Sally Kellerman as to any inherent innovation in the writing. Lockwood and Kellerman portray two Enterprise crew members who become super-intelligent after having been exposed to some alien territory barrier. While this interaction initially gives them what the episode refers to as “ESP”, what really happens is an incredibly rapid acceleration of their cognitive powers on all levels. One of the episode’s most memorable sequences has Lockwood, who has been confined to the ship’s infirmary, quickly scanning through thousands of pages of the computer’s archives of various books, obviously taking Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics to a level heretofore unimagined. Imagine that same basic plot setup altered slightly and mixed with a generous dose of H.P. Lovecraft and you’ll have the general gist of Headspace, an interesting though flawed 2005 thriller-gorefest that may be of most interest due to its rather outré list of guest stars (echoing that long ago Star Trek episode).

Headspace is one of those psychological thrillers whose central conceit hinges on whether nasty stuff is really happening or is just a figment of the protagonist’s mind. In this case, the protagonist is a young man named Alex (Christopher Denham) whose chance encounter with Central Park chess player Harry (Erick Kastel) seems to spark an almost mutant growth in Alex’s intellect, along with a series of visions of horrific monsters. Along with the visions, suddenly a slew of grisly murders starts taking the lives of those around Alex, and the frightened young man begins to think that he’s responsible for them. Meanwhile, the precipitous growth in the use of his frontal lobe has attracted the interest of a whole cadre of brain researchers, including Dr. Bell (Dee Wallace-Stone), Dr. Gold (William Atherton) and Dr. Murphy (Olivia Hussey). (It should be noted that just for good measure the film also features cameos by Sean Young and Udo Kier.)

This was producer-director Andrew van den Houten’s first full length feature, and for a first feature it’s surprisingly well crafted, though it still shows its seams a bit too often for its own good. The script evidently went through some twenty drafts (according to one of the commentaries included on this Blu-ray), and some wags may aver that perhaps at least twenty-one might have been called for. The film has some glaring lapses in logic which not even van den Houten’s staging skill can quite overcome. (Without posting any spoilers, if Alex’s mental acuity has been raised to such a startling level, why is he still unaware of one of the supposed big “twists” in the story with regard to Harry, a twist that will probably come as no surprise to anyone watching the film.) The film also traffics in some fairly hoary clichés, including that old standby of watching blood seep under a door as we hear a lot of mayhem happening on the other side of it.

Headspace is also too muddled for its own good, trying too felicitously to walk a tightrope between “is he or isn’t he” (bat guano crazy, that is), and never ultimately letting the audience have an ultimate clue as to which option might be what’s “really” happening. The problem is, whatever choice is made, there are more of those glaring lapses in logic. If Alex is crazy, why are several researchers (including a spooky Russian doctor) trying to convince him he’s a “link” to another dimension filled with all sorts of things that go bump in the night? If he isn’t crazy, how to explain the mayhem that’s killing off large portions of this film’s supporting cast? Headspace wants to have it both ways, and unfortunately ends up having it neither very effectively.

Still the film is quite stylish, especially for a first feature, and the performances are very good to excellent for this kind of lo-fi outing. Van den Houten knows what he wants to achieve with Headspace and goes a long way toward actually achieving it, but he’s undercut by a screenplay that tries to out-trick itself and instead ends up tricking the audience.

Headspace Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Headspace is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of MVD Visual with an a AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Headspace was shot on Super 16, and for a film done in this smaller format it looks really rather surprisingly good on Blu-ray. As cinematographer William Miller discusses in his commentary included on the Blu-ray as a supplement, quite a bit of post was done on the image, with color correction and filtering giving the film a decidedly surreal edge a lot of the time. The overall image here is of course grainy and fairly soft, but in sequences that haven't been artificially skewed, fine detail pops at least at above average levels, if not exactly at eye popping levels. The biggest detriment to this presentation, and one probably endemic to the source elements (I confess I never saw Headspace theatrically) is its incredible darkness, one simply awash in crush and nonexistent shadow detail. While this adds a suitably spooky ambience, it also deprives the viewer of some essential information—it's hard to be totally scared if you can't see anything that's going on.

Headspace Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

MVD is another niche label which hasn't quite stepped up to the plate on all of its releases with regard to lossless audio options, and so Headspace is granted only two lossy Dolby tracks, a 5.1 surround mix and a standard Dolby 2.0 stereo fold down. The 5.1 mix is reasonably aggressive as far as Dolby audio goes, with a good low end and some really well placed sound effects in the surround channels that offer a few "startle" moments. That said, the mix is fairly front-centric, with the moody score providing most of the consistent surround activity. Fidelity is fine here, with good prioritization of dialogue, effects and score. A lossless track would have provided a little more sonic "oomph", of course, but there's nothing major to complain about here other than the lossiness itself.

Headspace Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Fractured Skulls: The Making of Headspace (SD; 26:34) is a standard by engaging overview featurette that offers interviews, behind the scenes footage (including some interesting shots of the fabrication of the monsters) and scenes from the film. Original writer Troy McCombs comes off as perhaps a slightly troubled soul.


• Headspace Revisited (1080i; 21:56) is a contemporary featurette with Andrew Van Den Houten and Christopher Denham, who reminisce about the film.


• Deleted, Extended and Alternate Scenes (SD; 53:06)


• Makeup FX Photo Journal (SD; 7:13)


• Lightheaded (SD; 5:55) is a more in-depth look at the monster fabrication.


• Auditions includes Christopher Denham (SD; 1:55), Erick Kastel (SD; 2:08), Paul Sparks (SD; 2:53), Pollyanna McIntosh (SD; 2:04), Daniel Manche (SD; 1:37), and Christopher & Erick Callback (SD; 2:48).


• Production Slideshow (HD; 2:10)


• Trailer (HD; 2:07)


• Poster Concepts


• Commentary with Director Andrew Van Den Houten and Cinematographer/Producer William Miller. Miller also co-wrote this project, and this is a detailed commentary that provides a lot of backstory on the pre-production as well as the filming. I personally would have preferred a little bit more time spent on filling in what they thought of the plot mechanics.


• Commentary with Composer Ryan Shore, Editor Elwaldo Baptiste and Makeup FX Artist Jamie Kellman. Baptiste is literally phoning it in from New York (the two other participants are in Los Angeles), with a really weird audio quality making this commentary kind of odd to listen to. Otherwise, this is another interesting commentary that focuses on the contributions of these three men.

Headspace Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Headspace is a commendable first effort by Andrew van den Houten, but it has too many lapses in logic to make it a totally satisfying thriller. Still van den Houten proves himself a capable craftsman here, and Headspace may be reevaluated down the line if the fledgling producer-director manages to really break into the mainstream (think of what happened with Peter Jackson and Dead Alive). This Blu-ray offers decent video quality considering the film's shooting format, and okay sounding Dolby audio. The best thing about this package is the copious supplements. You could do worse than Headspace, but that's probably damning with faint praise.