Monster High: Frights, Camera, Action! Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		1.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.0

Monster High: Frights, Camera, Action! Blu-ray Movie Review

Truly frightening...

The problems with the Monster High series are many, so I'll just pick one. The big'un. High school girls are too old for it and middle school girls are on the verge of growing out of it, leaving younger children to bite their nails as Draculaura and her "ghoulfriends" struggle with the quote-unquote everyday, relatable life of teens in high school. Worse, the messages are mixed, the heroines are shallow, irritating or both, and the fashion -- the selling point of the Monster High merchandising empire -- is ghastly. And I haven't even gotten to Frights, Camera, Action!, which is as haphazardly written as it is poorly animated. Demographic demand may be pushing this one up through Amazon's sales ranks, but it by no means deserves that level of attention. Its comedy is wince-inducingly flat, its drama is manufactured, its dialogue is painful and the whole thing with leave with little choice but to duck out of the room and find something better to do. It facilitates the further dumbing down of our kids' cinematic palates and planting even more seeds of image and status insecurities at an early age. Refuse your daughters this one thing. They'll be all the better for it, whether they realize it now or not. Harmless entertainment, you say? Let's hope so, because nothing else justifies handing this one over to your little girls. Thus concludes the sermon. Send angry PM's accordingly.

The horror! The horror!

Monster High: Frights, Camera, Action! Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Like the Blu-ray edition of Monster High: 13 Wishes, the latest Monster High misfire so closely resembles its DVD counterpart that it's a complete mystery as to why the studio decided to release it on Blu-ray. Universal's 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 video presentation is decently encoded I suppose, but the upscaled results are horribly soft, with gauze-y edges, blurred textures and consistently dull, fuzzy clarity. Colors fare well enough, although they lack the power and pop of those featured in other animated releases, direct-to-video or no. Contrast is rather dull too, with middling black levels and muted shadows, and primaries are a bit diluted. There's also slight artifacting on display and plenty of banding to go around, even if very little of it is as distracting as the picture's prevailing standard definition haze. When a Blu-ray forces you to eject the disc to double check whether it's a BD or DVD, you know you're in trouble.

Monster High: Frights, Camera, Action! Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Flat, stocky and front-heavy, Universal's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track is wholly unremarkable, even if it remains true to the direct-to-video film's sound design. Voices and effects are reasonably clean, clear and decently prioritized, LFE output is... present, and the rear speakers are tasked with barebones support. It's all decidedly underwhelming, and as behind-the-times as its animation. It's serviceable I suppose, in that it isn't riddled with distractions or issues, but it's also disappointing. Not that most of your kids will notice, or care for that matter.

Monster High: Frights, Camera, Action! Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Three animated shorts (HD) are included: "Crime Scream Investigation," "Monster-morphoseas" and "Games Ghouls Play." Nothing more, nothing less. Skip 'em all. Or don't. Sorry... cynicism's fangs are buried in my neck.

Monster High: Frights, Camera, Action! Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Blu-ray release of Monster High: Frights, Camera, Action! is a top to bottom mess. There's a bit of relief to be had in its DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track, but only because it's passable. The movie itself? Its upscaled video presentation (which would even make for a soft DVD)? Its anemic supplemental package? All excellent reasons to avoid this drivel and leave your daughters with little choice but to watch something, I don't know, good. Just a suggestion. Watching these things have finally pushed me past the point of demographic diplomacy.