Limbo Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		1.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		2.0

Limbo Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 28, 2020

There’s a certain quaintly sweet quality to “pretend VHS” mastheads that various labels and/or imprints like MVD Rewind, Vestron Video and the American Genre Film Archive utilize on their Blu-ray releases, nostalgic callbacks to a time when the home video market was in its infancy and many people were just beginning to enjoy having ready access to all sorts of relatively lesser known offerings. Those mastheads also sometimes cheekily reference something else that early adapters of home video needed to have ready access to, namely their tracking control button. That whole VHS ambience isn’t relegated to only the masthead on Limbo, another odd release from AGFA (done in collaboration with Vinegar Syndrome) which presents the writing and directing debut of one Tina Krause, a so-called “multi-hyphenate” my hunch is many film fans have never heard of, this despite the fact that her IMDb listing page has well over one hundred credits as an actress. That lack of general renown may be due to the fact that Krause evidently long toiled in W.A.V.E. films, a production house which rather incredibly shoots straight to video offerings that are culled from scripts mailed into them by prospective screenwriters who pay W.A.V.E. to shoot their scripts. As is mentioned in both the rather funny commentary included on this disc as a bonus feature, as well as some of the other supplements, the W.A.V.E. films are not exactly "Art", and in fact tend to often feature naked females being assaulted in various ways, to the point that they're even described in some of the supplemental features as being geared toward those with certain fetishes. The same whole “DIY” aspect that informs the W.A.V.E. films is certainly front and center in Limbo, a film with a definite lack of narrative cohesion but with a certain manic energy that seems to suggest that Krause is one of those people who will in fact do it herself if she can’t find anyone else to do it for her.

Limbo is very much a purgatorial hallucination, and as such might be thought of as Jacob's Ladder by way of Looking For Mr. Goodbar (and, yes, that's a joke). Krause is on hand as a barfly who brings home a suitor for a one night stand, only to end up with a dead body on her hands and a series of nightmare interchanges following suit. There's really no "story" here in any traditional sense, and the film is instead probably best appreciated as a series of frequently gonzo imagery. Limbo is therefore probably stronger on mood than on actual content, but it's weirdly captivating in its own decidedly low rent way.

Limbo Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Limbo is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of AGFA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1. This is another release where "is it true to it source?" and "how does it actually look?" may feature into various reactions. While there are evidently some film interstitials here (at least according to what I understand from some of the supplements), this is largely culled from what I'm assuming was old standard definition video that has a number of built in deficiencies. Contrast, when not intentionally tweaked, is often pretty anemic, with some milky blacks and murky shadow detail. There are anomalies like ghosting and aliasing that are fairly recurrent, and detail levels are never great, even in some extreme close-ups. The palette can also look fairly faded and washed out at times.

Limbo Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There's not a ton to Limbo's sound design, and as such the DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track suffices perfectly well for a feature that only offers sporadic dialogue. Instead, a tinkly piano score and sound effects are more frequent elements, and they sound fine, if within a rather narrow, appropriately claustrophobic sound stage.

Limbo Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary by Tina Krause is moderated (if it can be called that) by Annie Choi and Joe Ziemba from Bleeding Skull and AGFA in a very enjoyable if kind of raucous discussion.


• Fantastic Fest Q & A (1080p; 27:20) features Annie Choi and Tina Krause.


• Constructing a Psychological Horror (1080p; 12:43) is an archival making of featurette.


• Answering Machine (1080p; 7:11) is a short film by Tina Krause.


• Eaten Alive: A Tasteful Revenge (1080p; 35:11) is a W.A.V.E. production starring Tina Krause.

Limbo Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I've really come to enjoy some of these admittedly weird releases from AGFA. These are cult items, to be sure, but for those who are attuned to this label and its offerings, Limbo may be an interesting release. Video is pretty iffy here, so I suggest looking at some of the screenshots to see how you feel about things. Audio is fine, and as is frequently the case with AGFA releases, the supplements are quite enjoyable.