5.4 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
The story centers on a group of strangers trapped in a time warp house where a terrible event transpired exactly 100 years prior.
Starring: Val Kilmer, Ving Rhames, Luke Goss, Bonnie Somerville, Matt BarrThriller | 100% |
Horror | 63% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 0.5 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
"Direct to video" no longer has the stigma it once did. In an era where promoting a theatrical release can cost as much as making the film and more people are likely to see it on home video anyway, skipping the movie theater can make good economic sense. This is especially true for a film without the financial muscle of studio backing, which often comes with contractual commitments or accounting gimmickry requiring that the film appear inside a cineplex. (How else does one explain the release of a train wreck like Jonah Hex?) Sometimes, though, direct to video is exactly what it used to be: the dumping ground for films too awful to persuade anyone to release them. Such is the case with 7 Below (or, depending on what source you consult, Seven Below), a wanna-be horror film with no scares, zero suspense and even less drama. (Yes, that would be a negative value; the movie literally sucks drama out of the room.) Director and co-writer Kevin Carraway has obviously watched plenty of horror films, because 7 Below contains countless elements lifted from superior sources, the most obvious of which are Halloween, Psycho and The Haunting (the 1963 Robert Wise original, not the ghastly 1999 remake). I also counted elements from The Shining, Kenneth Branagh's 1991 potboiler Dead Again, the original Friday the 13th and even The Skeleton Key. Undoubtedly there are others. But in many instances, especially with the older classics in the list, it seems as if Carraway hasn't actually seen the films (or watched them all the way through). 7 Below plays like what you'd get if someone were to make highlight reels from great horror films, or lesser imitations, then randomly clipped scenes from those reels for the kind of collage that author William Burroughs used to create by cutting words from the pages of a book. Burroughs created some interesting surrealist poetry, but Carraway came up with the script for a 93-minute feature that makes no sense from title to closing shot. Somehow he managed to persuade actors as talented as Val Kilmer, Ving Rhames and Luke Goss to appear in this disaster.
Because 7 Below skipped theatrical release and went straight to video, it is unclear what its release ratio would have been. The ratio on Image Entertainment's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is 1.78:1, which is not an AR used in theatrical exhibition. Although the usual theatrical AR for such a disc presentation would be 1.85:1, an occasional shot suggests that director Carraway and cinematographer Harris Charalambous may have framed the film for 2.39:1 theatrical exhibition. In general, though, the compositions do not feel cramped, nor are objects or people noticeably cropped at the edge of the frame, except as noted. DP Charalambous' website hasn't been updated to include 7 Below, but both the film's texture and a close reading of the credits suggest that 7 Below was shot digitally. This has both pluses and minuses. The pluses include a clean image, good detail, solid blacks, good depth of field and all of the usual virtues of digital acquisition when it comes time to make a Blu-ray. The minuses are most noticeable in the prologue set in 1911, where the digital appearance feels completely "off", because it looks far too contemporary. Either the production should have used film for these sequences, or further processing should have been done in post to simulate a period look, whether through color desaturation or other means. The palette favors cool colors, with blues dominant except where the warm tones are meant to throw you off guard (and they don't). Even scenes in the forest or in the antique McKnight home have been chilled down through the introduction of copious cool tones, notably white (fog, a lot of white linens and nightclothes, etc.). For whatever it's worth, I'm confident that the Blu-ray has faithfully replicated the film's intended look.
The DTS-HD MA 5.1 is aggressively loud in creating the severe thunderstorm that traps the travelers in the old house, but it doesn't otherwise offer much in the way of subtle or creepy sound cues. There's the occasional rustle or distant voice, but such effects depend on moments of silence for their impact, and 7 Below doesn't do silence. I have read complaints at IMDb and elsewhere that some users can't hear the dialogue over the noise of the storm, but I had no problem (not that there's anything informative to hear). This may simply be a matter of proper calibration. The score by Jake Staley, who was the orchestrator for All Things Fall Apart, is adequate but nothing more.
There's not one thing to recommend in 7 Below. It's not eye candy; it isn't a sound demo; and the story, if you can call it that, is dull and meandering. If you must have the disc, the technical merits can't be faulted, but don't come crying to me that you wasted your time and money.
(Still not reliable for this title)
2011
Collector's Edition
2001
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2007
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