5.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 1.5 | |
Overall | 1.5 |
Helen is the young girlfriend of good-looking Jackson Baring. When Helen gets pregnant and marries Jackson, they decide to move to his hometown, Kilronan, and have a baby there. But his mother Martha, who lives there, starts to do weird things, and obviously she's not too friendly to Helen.
Starring: Jessica Lange, Gwyneth Paltrow, Johnathon Schaech, Nina Foch, Debi MazarMystery | 100% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 1.5 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 1.5 |
It's somewhat fashionable these days to hate on Gwyneth Paltrow, whose rich-white-girl-with-good-taste shtick, by way of her lifestyle website GOOP, is grating to those who perhaps rightly see good old Gwynnie's recommendations for cashmere socks and thousand-dollar-a-night hotels rather tone deaf in the face of America's continuing economic troubles. Fair enough. If that's you, you'll find plenty of fuel for the Paltrow pyre in Hush, the film that--for my money--is the absolute worst in the actress' 20-year career. (Yes, that includes Shallow Hal and Country Strong.) I'm kind of surprised Hush is even being re-released on Blu-ray, because this is an utterly botched, epically awful movie whose only redeeming quality is the fact that it's so unswervingly mindless that it verges on campy, soap opera-ish fun. Verges being the operative word. I’ll confess to having a few good laughs at the expense of the theatrical acting and are you kidding me plot contrivances--you could never take this film as seriously as it takes itself--but the so-bad-it’s-good factor isn’t nearly enough to recommend this misdirected, under and over-acted drivel. Gwyneth herself has acknowledged how outrageously terrible Hush is, and it’s almost unfathomable to think she appeared here and in Shakespeare in Love in the same year.
Mother-in-Law
As I mentioned in my review of Armed and Dangerous, Image Entertainment's catalog releases have an almost standardized look; they seem like they were simply run through the telecine machine, given minimal-to-no retouches, and placed on a single-layer disc with a low but acceptable bit rate. Other than this last part--which usually results in some compression noise--I'm totally fine with this approach, especially when it comes to older titles that wouldn't otherwise ever show up on Blu-ray. Hush features a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer that presents a modest improvement over its standard definition counterpart, but subjectively speaking, the film just doesn't look very good. The image is perpetually soft--even in extreme close- ups there's a lack of truly fine detail--and the 35mm grain structure is so chunky and thick that it could easily pass for 16mm. Granted, this is a source- related issue, not a transfer problem, but just be aware that Hush ain't exactly eye candy. The print is very clean, however, and there are no traces of noise reduction or edge enhancement. Color fares moderately better than clarity. Most of the film has a slightly yellowish cast, with warm skin tones and rich neutral hues. Black levels can be a bit intense at times, crushing some shadow detail, but never detrimentally so. Light chroma noise does show up in many shots, but I didn't spot any other excessive compression problems, like macroblocking or banding.
Hush comes with a default lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track that gets the job done with few embellishments. The most important element of the mix, of course, is dialogue, and the vocals are always clear and easily understood, with no muffling, crackling, or drop-outs. Christopher Young's score has the laziest "Hush Little Baby" leitmotif imaginable, but the music at least sounds good, with full dynamics and instrumentation that's spread throughout all 5.1 channels. Otherwise, the rear speakers only get infrequent use; there's some quiet ambience on occasion--wind and birds and other outdoorsy sounds, party chatter, etc.--and a few distinct directional effects, like a rapidly and loudly slamming door, but that's about it. The mix works, but it's never especially involving or immersive.
The sole supplement on the disc is a lonely 1080p theatrical trailer.
Unless you're some sort of bad-movie-watching masochist, there's no real reason to revisit Hush, one of the most dippy psychological thrillers of the 1990s and arguably the worst film of Gwyneth Paltrow's career. It's okay for a laugh, but there are far more deliciously awful movies available if you're simply looking for so-bad-it's-good entertainment.
2017
Warner Archive Collection
1933
2019
Warner Archive Collection / Includes Mystery of the Wax Museum in SD
1953
2010
2003
1973
2005
1995
2015
2018
1967
Unrated Director's Cut
2009
2000
1942
2020
2023
1964
1952
[•REC]⁴: Apocalypse / [•REC]⁴: Apocalipsis
2014