Nocturna Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.5

Nocturna Blu-ray Movie Review

New Orleans Nights

Reviewed by Martin Liebman October 22, 2015

Surprise and originality aren't exactly Nocturna's strong points. It's a movie that's easy to read just from the box and the blurb, a film that delivers an expectedly simple and routine movie watching experience without much bite, even considering its vampire-on-vampire action, romance, and mythos. "Low-grade Chiller" best describes it. It's a movie that's without much substance or style. It wears its budget-conscious approach on its sleeve. The film lacks in all areas, excels in none, but never really embarrasses itself, getting by on only moviemaking meat-and-potatoes in every facet of the process. Vampire-hungry audiences expecting a lower-end experience should find the movie passably enjoyable, if not a but dull, predictable, and cheap. Those looking for big studio and huge budget polish should stay away.

A brooding vampire.

Veteran New Orleans Detective Harry Ganet (Mike Doyle), called "the last honest cop in the city," is paired with a young rookie named Roy Cody (Danny Agha), a born-and-bred Kansan who moved to the Big Easy after his parents died. He's falling under Harry's watch as a personal "request" from the mayor himself, who happens to by Roy's uncle. Their first case takes them to the site of an apparent suicide-by-gun, but at the scene they discover a small girl who bears a mark Harry recognizes all too well. Roy insist on protecting her and taking her home, which leads them to a coven of vampires who are feeding on children. It's not long before both men find themselves on the wrong end of the Moldero vampire clan that's out for blood. Their only choice to survive is to flee to a rival vampire house where Harry must do the unthinkable to survive.

Nocturna starts slowly but works hard to recover as it pushes on through to its finale. There's a noticeable uptick in quality as the movie proceeds, almost as if the filmmakers and performers gained a bit of confidence along the way, assuming it was made more or less linearly, starting with the beginning and moving towards the end. Action scenes tighten up nicely, evolving from a horribly flat, dull, and nearly slow-motion hospital escape sequence early in the movie to a fairly entertaining, though not quite rip-roaring, climactic battle sequence. There's an evident growth in the characters from "nobodies" to "somebodies." They're not complexly fascinating or even all that much personality-laden, but there's a nice evolution from stiff-as-a-board to acceptably generic. Even the script seems to gain steam along the way as it leaves behind the drudgery of the first act -- and an opening sequence in particular that's horribly paced and exceedingly dull -- and evolve into, at least, a reasonably brisk and well versed second and third as the lore becomes more interesting and the characters more developed. All that said, the movie cannot escape its low budget roots and largely amateurish presentation, but audiences that stick through for the duration should at least feel like it was, if not time well spent, not time lost to a total nothing of a movie.

Nocturna's core story details aren't notably exciting, either, but like everything else they'll grow on the audience as the film matures beyond its wayward opening act and gradually embraces a more streamlined, if not generic, narrative. Most of the permutations one would expect are here, while there are a few halfway interesting twists thrown in for good measure, twists that don't all come at the end but rather in a reactionary, move-the-film-along sort of way. The core story, a one-sentence synopsis of warring vampire clans and the cops caught in the middle, isn't particularly intriguing as the picture maneuvers through the expectedly bleak vampiric underworld and desperately claws at all of the clichés the genre affords the filmmakers who just want to make a "Vampire movie" rather than truly innovate in any way. Nocturna settles for a perfunctory progression that, even as the film improves as it advances, never ascends beyond a middle of the pack direct-to-video time killer that's strictly for hardcore genre fans only.

Nocturna Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Nocturna's 1080p transfer is frequently bleak and black. Aside from a few moments here and there where the daytime sun reveals a pleasantly crisp, sharp, nicely textured, and abundantly colorful image, the movie favors a darkness that is, at least, deep and pure without crush or, on the other end of the spectrum, dull and gray. Even in the lower light, details satisfy, though there's no missing the movie's flat, inorganic, digital façade. Colors are what they are in these conditions, a bit dull and dim but appropriate for the mood and style. The image does suffer from some banding, macroblocking, and noise. It's not really anything special, but considering the modest HD photography and predominately dark sets, it looks about as good as can reasonably be expected.

Nocturna Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Nocturna features a fairly pedestrian Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless soundtrack. Dialogue can be a bit shallow and get practically lost under some heavier effects; a moment in chapter nine exemplifies the problem. Music lacks robustness, intimate definition, and precision placement in the early goings but does ascend to a respectable level of delivery as the film progresses, culminating in a fairly involved and enjoyable final confrontation. Gunshots in that end battle are decently hefty but not particularly lifelike. Ambient effects are hit-or-miss; some elements refuse to stretch into the rears, but others are nicely immersive and even maneuver with relative effortlessness around the stage. This track gets the job done but accomplishes little else.

Nocturna Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

All that's included are previews for Nocturna (1080p, 2:07), Skin Traffik (1080p, 1:39), and Strangerland (1080p, 1:46).

Nocturna Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Nocturna won't knock anyone's socks off, but it plays well enough beyond a misappropriated opening act that even emphasizes, at first, the wrong character. The movie works relatively hard to revitalize itself and ultimately satisfies, in a very simple, mindless way, by the end. It makes, then, for a decent, though totally forgettable, watch by the standards of low-grade, direct-to-video Horror. Alchemy's Blu-ray release of Nocturna is, much like the movie, passable but not at all memorable. It features acceptable video and audio. Supplements are limited to a trio of trailers. Rent it.