6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
As a child, Luther Watts was deeply affected by seeing a circus geek (someone who bites the heads off live chickens in a circus sideshow). Finally paroled after serving 20 years in prison, he terrorizes the residents of his hometown by making chicken noises, crowing like a rooster and attacking people. He winds up at a farm run by a woman and her daughter, where he takes them captive and then starts killing off her neighbors. The mother realizes she and her daughter must escape before he kills them, too.
Starring: Stacy Haiduk, Edward Terry, Joan Roth, Thomas Mills, Jerry ClarkeHorror | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
English SDH
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
A geek, as defined in “Luther the Geek,” is a disturbed carnival sideshow performer who bites the heads off snakes and chickens, usually for a reward that helps to calm urges of alcoholism and drug addiction. It’s not the geek as we know it today, making future trips to Best Buy all the more uncomfortable. “Luther the Geek” is a horror film that plays around with the nightmarish vocation, transporting a Depression-era celebration of the macabre to a slightly more modern setting, with writer/director Carlton J. Albright creating a slasher-type event with a truly disturbing murderer. It’s a weird movie, but one that owns its strangeness through a commitment to character and unusual encounters between the (clucking) hunter and his understandably confused prey.
The AVC encoded image (1.85:1 aspect ratio) presentation once again proves that Vinegar Syndrome should really be handling titles from the Troma library. Detail is superb with this low-budget effort, handling slightly softer cinematography with care, pulling textures out of set decoration and gore zone visits, while the actors are explored in full. Grain is full and filmic. Colors are sharp and true, with wonderful primaries that look superb in the natural light. Skintones are secure. Delineation is open for inspection, permitting a good look at evening encounters. The source is in encouraging shape, with no major points of damage detected.
The 1.0 DTS-HD MA sound mix carries the "Luther the Geek" listening experience along with ideal menace, only encountering a degree of hiss that isn't distracting. Dialogue exchanges are agreeable, with intelligibility preserved, which extends to all the clucking. Scoring needs are met, with passable instrumentation and secure dramatic support. Atmospherics aren't highly designed, but echoed interiors are preserved, along with farmhouse expanse.
The picture has a few surprises, most emerging from character expendability and a finale that kinda, sorta attempts to make sense of the killer's scrambled mind. It's not a terribly successful psychological probe (after all, this is a movie where the main character only speaks in clucks), but the effort is appreciated, along with more chilling examples of the murderer in his element, chewing on chicken heads (animal lovers: the authenticity of the act is up for debate) and human flesh. "Luther the Geek" has moments of silliness, and it's a frustrating sit at times, especially when it becomes obvious that Albright doesn't know the difference between building suspense and padding a run time, with a few excursions in the dark of the country house lasting roughly a century. Still, there's much to enjoy here, including a memorable villain and a few authentically unnerving encounters. At the very least, "Luther the Geek" is different than the average chiller, doing what it can to separate itself from the white noise (or perhaps red noise?) of a repetitive genre.
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