5.9 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A lonely woman befriends a group of teenagers and decides to let them party at her house. Just when the kids think their luck couldn't get any better, things start happening that make them question the intention of their host.
Starring: Octavia Spencer, Diana Silvers, Juliette Lewis, McKaley Miller, Corey FogelmanisHorror | 100% |
Thriller | 8% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French (Canada): DTS 5.1
Spanish: DTS 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH, French, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
Digital copy
DVD copy
BD-Live
Slipcover in original pressing
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Oscar winner Octavia Spencer turns in the most complex performance of her career in Director Tate Taylor's (The Girl on the Train) Ma, the story of a wounded soul carrying deeply seeded and painfully weighty baggage that is yearning to be exorcised through violence. The film takes the Horror genre through somewhat uncharted paces, exploring a scarred figure from the outside in and eventually pushing back out, removing a pleasant façade in favor of a fully different face of fear. It's approachable even in its complexity and blends pure entertainment value with well designed character depth, capped by performance intensity. It's one of the better films of 2019.
Ma was shot digitally and the source translates quite nicely to Blu-ray in what is a fairly typical new release image. Light noise sprinkles about in modest-to-low light conditions but the picture is otherwise free of any obvious source or encode blemishes. Details are handled well and presented nicely. The image reproduces essentials like faces and clothes with the expected level of 1080p sophistication while some of the environments, like Sue Ann's basement, reveal an assortment of odds and ends textures with inviting and location-defining sharpness. Colors are of stable, reliable excellence, revealing essential shades with good, balanced contrast and no feel for airiness or excess depth. Skin tones appear true and black levels hold firm. Not much to say about this one. It's perfectly good all-around.
The included DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack pleases from the outset, offering richly defined instrumental and lyric detail in the opening song. Elements spread around the stage; the fronts carry the bulk but the surrounds pick up just the right amount of complimentary detail. The same goes for the following school hallway and casino floor scenes, where light din easily and seamlessly pulls the listener into the environments. As the party gets kicking in Ma's basement, the track continues to show appropriately engaging liveliness in several party scenes. Once the film reaches its climax, the surrounds carry a well balanced feel for engulfing flames, punctuated by an explosion that delivers with hearty low end support. Dialogue delivery is clear and well prioritized from its front-center home.
Ma's supplemental package is comprised of an alternate ending, deleted scenes, two short featurettes, and a trailer. A DVD copy of the film
and a
Movies Anywhere digital copy code are included with purchase. This release ships with an embossed slipcover.
Spencer previously worked with Tate on The Help, the film for which she won her Oscar. Ma is an entirely different kind of film with its own challenges and a unique focus on personal deterioration born of a singular moment of humiliation. It's eerily complex and effectively engrossing, even if it takes its time building and peering into its title character. It's a refreshing rebrand of the Horror genre, a more open yet more involved and layered story of deeply rooted interior torture that begs to be loosed on the world. Universal's Blu-ray is very well rounded, delivering high-end video and audio presentations and a fair little sprinkling of extra content. Highly recommended.
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