6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
In 1987 Perth, Austraila, John and Evelyn White are a pair of serial killers who target teenage girls. One night, Vicki Maloney, who impetuously sneaks out of the house for a forbidden party, is lured by the pair into their clutches. Now paying dearly for her naivety, Vicki must endure a horrific nightmare of confinement and torture at the hands of this depraved pair. Against these murderers, Vicki's only chance of survival is a mix of subterfuge, cunning, and mind games while her estranged parents and her boyfriend desperately try to learn what has happened and what can be done to find her. Meanwhile, the Whites have growing problems of their own, which could provide the only hope Vicki could have to survive.
Starring: Emma Booth, Ashleigh Cummings, Stephen Curry (I), Susie Porter, Maggie MeyerThriller | Insignificant |
Crime | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.38:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region B (locked)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Due to recent sad events which don’t need to be recounted here, television news has over the past few weeks been filled with many repeated references to Australia and their now famous banning of so-called assault weapons in 1996. Part of the horror of Hounds of Love is that this “based on a true story” tale doesn’t require even so much as a single solitary handgun (let alone anything more powerful) to deliver death and dismay to a series of Australian victims. The film has a palpably unsettling tone from the get go, when a Perth couple named John (Stephen Curry) and Evelyn White (Emma Booth) first stalk and then lure a young girl into their car after the girl finishes a sports practice. Suffice it to say the Whites’ motives are not altruistic, despite their insistence that they only want to help the girl get out of the stifling Australian heat. In a kind of interestingly discursive presentational approach, writer and director Ben Young makes clear what happens next, without really documenting it in any kind of lurid fashion. The Whites, it seems, are serial murderers, and they enjoy toying with their victims like a cat with a mouse before finally dispatching them. Hounds of Love is often undeniably provocative, even as it tends to avoid really graphically violent imagery, but it’s one of those films that will probably evenly divide audiences. Some may find it a penetrating psychological analysis of an obviously troubled couple, while others may feel it’s a questionable attempt to marry Art House aesthetics to what is in essence a story that has elements of torture porn.
Hounds of Love is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.38:1. While brightness looks a little boosted at times, especially in some of the interior scenes of the White home, overall this is a crisp and well detailed looking presentation, especially when close-ups (which are fairly plentiful) are employed (see screenshot 14). The palette is relatively cool looking, with a mildly desaturated appearance, especially with regard to things like flesh tones. There are no issues with compression anomalies.
Hounds of Love features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that really doesn't have a lot of opportunity to provide significant "wow" factor, but which still offers good placement of fairly consistent (if sometimes subtle) ambient environmental effects. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly on this problem free track.
- Stephen Curry (HD; 4:02)
- Emma Booth (HD; 4:15)
- Ashleigh Cummings (HD; 2:52)
- Behind the Scenes Reel (HD; 5:22)
- Emma to Evie Make-Up Transformation (HD; 1:11)
- Something Fishy (2010) (HD; 13:13)
- Bush Basher (2011) (HD; 15:40)
Hounds of Love is a film that has horror elements, but which plays out more devastatingly on a psychological level. This is not an "easy" watch by any stretch of the imagination, even if director Ben Young rather interestingly tends to shy away from outright depictions of mayhem. The trio of lead performances is viscerally involving, even if the basic thrust of the plot becomes clear quite a while before it's actually revealed. With some substantial caveats for those who either want nonstop gore in their horror outings, or perhaps ironically for those who may not have the tolerance for fairly sustained hints of torture and captivity, Hounds of Love comes Recommended.
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