6.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Five young individuals agree to live in a home and have their daily activities filmed. But soon the house is locked down and they each run into the murderous clutches of a faceless serial killer -- who may not be working alone.
Starring: Amy Weber, Nichole Pelerine, Ilia Volok, Kim Simms Thomas, Linnea QuigleyHorror | 100% |
Mystery | 14% |
Thriller | 3% |
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: LPCM 2.0
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
How do you feel about so-called “reality television”? I’ve known some of the people involved in the “backstage” arena of some of these shows, and let’s just say that in their unguarded moments they may have shared that at least some aspects of some of these shows are not exactly “spontaneous”, and can actually have producers and directors involved, helping to “shape” the supposed “reality”. That said, even with the knowledge that not everything in any given show may in fact be “real”, I personally love Survivor, while I pretty much can’t stand Big Brother, despite some of their surface similarities. Kolobos pre-dated the first (American) season of Big Brother by a year, give or take, and according to some of the supplements included on this Blu-ray as bonus features may actually owe more of its genesis to MTV’s also similar The Real World. Kind of humorously, one of the creatives behind Kolobos evidently felt about The Real World the way I tend to do about Big Brother, finding the participants so instantly annoying that he actually started dreaming up ways to “off” them, which in turn led to the idea behind Kolobos: a bunch of “Big Brother” or “The Real World” wannabes who are recruited via a classified ad to try out for a “fly on the wall” experiment where strangers are forced to live together with cameras documenting their every move. Suffice it to say that being “banished” from this particular house doesn’t mean leaving the show, at least not while still alive.
Kolobos is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Arrow's insert booklet contains the following information on the restoration:
Kobos has been exclusively restored by Arrow Films and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 with stereo and 5.1 audio.As can probably be fairly easily discerned from many of the screenshots accompanying this review, this is a very grainy looking offering, one that can almost look more like 16mm than 35mm at times, and so those who may still have "issues" with such a look even this far into the high definition era may want to carefully peruse the screenshots. The grain is so chunky at times, especially when darker objects are on the screen, that it assumes a slightly purplish hue that can look like pixellation or chroma anomalies. Some examples of this very grainy look can be seen in screenshots 14 through 19. When lighter objects are on screen, the grain field diminishes perceptibly, but still maintains an organic quality. At individual moments, the palette can pop quite impressively in an "Argento-esque" way (take a gander at the bloody hand on the brick wall in screenshot 5 for one example), but on the whole, things look a bit pallid, with somewhat anemic flesh tones and colors that can look a bit blanched. Detail levels are quite good throughout the presentation, and some of the practical effects work in the death scenes is effective enough that more squeamish types may be wanting to avoid their eyes. As with most Arrow releases, there are no issues with any major compression artifacts.
The original 35mm camera negative element was scanned in 2K resolution on a Lasergraphics Director at EFilm, Burbank. The film was graded and restored at Dragon DI, Wales. Picture grading was completed on a Pablo Rio system and restoration was completed using PFClean and Revival software.
The original audio mixes were produced by the filmmakers.
All materials for this restoration were made available by filmmakers Daniel Liatowitsch and David Todd Ocvirk, who have approved this restoration.
Kolobos features DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 mixes. As is readily admitted in some of the supplements, William Kidd's score intentionally apes some of the Goblin scores in Argento films, and the music spreads quite appealingly through the surround channels in the 5.1 mix. There are also some kind of funny (one assumes intentionally so) sound effects in some of the kill scenes which attain some nice panning activity in the surround mix. All of this said, dialogue sounds a bit "hollow" (for want of a better term) in both the surround and stereo mixes. I'm assuming this must be inherent and due to whatever recording techniques were utilized during the shoot, but there's just a slightly unnatural ambience to some of the dialogue (notably some of the hospital scenes, which I'm assuming from what I understand in the supplementary material were part of the "second round" of shooting, which may account for some of the difference in ambience and overall sound).
There some very effective material in Kolobos, especially in some of the more hyperbolically staged kill scenes, but the entire film never really holds together very well, a perhaps inevitable outcome of the "bifurcated" shooting process that is documented in some of the supplements. This is another commendable Arrow release of a cult item that may not have hugely wide appeal, but which Arrow has gone to the trouble to provide some really interesting supplements for. Technical merits are generally solid, with a few passing issues, for those considering a purchase.
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