Starry Eyes Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

Starry Eyes Blu-ray Movie Review

All About Sarah

Reviewed by Michael Reuben January 29, 2015

People often refer to success in Hollywood as "selling one's soul", but what if the purchaser is only interested in souls of a certain caliber? What if one has to audition for damnation? That is the intriguing premise behind Starry Eyes, an independent horror film from the writing and directing team of Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer, whose Kickstarter campaign received a boost from Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk, the subject of their 2003 documentary, Postcards from the Future. But the film's revelation is its previously unknown star, Alex Essoe, whose performance as an aspiring actress paints an unsettling portrait of the extremes to which frustrated ambition can drive someone who seems, on the surface, utterly harmless.

Starry Eyes was shot in eighteen days, and its flat, often monochromatic cinematography is a deliberate choice by the filmmakers to shroud sunny L.A. in a miasma of doom and gloom, the way it must look to so many starving actors who can't make their rent and whose careers are going nowhere. But when things get really bad, Kölsch and Widmyer don't let budgetary constraints hold them back. Their star went above and beyond the call of duty to give them graphic footage for which you'll not find screen captures accompanying this review, because they would spoil the plot.

We learn nothing about the background of Sarah (Essoe), who appears to be one of the thousands of young hopefuls trying to find what used to be called a "big break" that will lead to a thriving career in movies. Alex calls it "a gateway part". Meanwhile, she supports herself as a waitress in at a restaurant called Big Taters, where the required uniform is a skin-tight oufit and the manager, Carl (Pat Healy, Cheap Thrills), has seen too many like Sarah come and go to have any illusions about a young actress' aspirations. Cell phones are strictly prohibited while the staff is on duty at Big Taters, but Sarah carries hers anyway, to Carl's constant annoyance. Every call is more important than her job.

Whenever she can, Sarah auditions, smiling sweetly and putting a brave face on the nagging sense of frustration that every actor feels after baring their soul to impassive strangers in a room. She maintains a good front until she's alone, but then she vents her anguish in a ritual of screaming, thrashing and hair-pulling that borders on self-mutilation. (As the directors note in their commentary, Sarah's hair has its own character arc.)

Sarah's suffering is a private matter until her audition for a horror project entitled The Silver Scream being produced by the venerable Astraeus Pictures. ("Can you put your inner being on the screen?" reads the casting notice.) As Sarah rages in a ladies room stall at Astraeus after her reading, she is overheard by the spooky casting director (Maria Olsen) and invited back for a different sort of tryout . Thus begins a series of increasingly bizarre encounters that culminate in a meeting with a silver-haired gentleman known only as the Producer (Louis Dezseran), who could certainly be described as a man of wealth and taste. He speaks in soaring rhetoric, but Sarah quickly becomes concerned that perhaps this old-time movie mogul entertains old-fashioned ideas about how young women get ahead in Hollywood.

Although Sarah is unnerved by what happens with Astraeus, it's not as if the rest of her life offers her an appealing alternative. At work, Carl continues to hassle her. Her roommate, Tracy (Amanda Fuller), who has given up on acting, is nice enough, but Tracy's circle of friends is filled with aspiring actors, writers and directors who even Sarah can see will probably end up abandoning show business within a few years. But that doesn't stop them from being snippy and competitive now, especially Erin (Fabianne Therese), who won a role in a commercial for which both she and Sarah auditioned. Neither Erin nor Ashley (Natalie Castillo), another aspiring actress, thinks much of Sarah's prospects. Erin's boyfriend, Danny (Noah Segan, Looper), has written a script that he plans to direct starring Erin, if and when he ever raises the money. When Erin's not around, though, Danny is happy to talk to Sarah about her hopes and dreams. Maybe he's a genuinely nice guy—or maybe he's keeping his options open.

In scene after scene, Sarah feels alienated from this social group, as they entertain and comfort each other while they huddle on the fringe of show business, hoping that opportunity will knock. From Sarah's point of view, though, they're not really serious about their careers. They are not what the Producer at Astraeus would call doers. And that, ultimately, is what separates them from Sarah—or so she thinks. By the time Astraeus is done with her, a great deal more separates them.

Fame and fortune are often said to come at a price, whether it's loss of privacy, damaged relationships, isolation or simply the gnawing anxiety that you're only as good as your last success. In Starry Eyes, the price exacted from Sarah for fame and fortune is expressed in terms that are much more literal and grotesque. The Producer makes it sound glorious, but the reality is messy and painful. Far more disturbing, though, is how passionately Sarah comes to embrace the bargain. Temptation only works on those willing to be tempted, and the Producer picked Sarah because he saw something beneath the ingenue's exterior that Sarah's friends missed completely. It just needed the right encouragement to bring it out.

Starry Eyes Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Starry Eyes was shot on Red by Adam Bricker (Jake Squared) and finished on a digital intermediate, from which MPI's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray was presumably sourced. Directors Kölsch and Widmyer confirm in their commentary that the flat, dull, almost monochromatic image is exactly what they wanted for the film, and they consider themselves lucky that all of their outdoor shooting days were "blessed" with rainy, overcast weather (a rarity for L.A., especially in the drought of recent years). A few colors stand out, notably red and green, because these will take on special significance (and greater intensity) later in the film. But the overall dullness is intentional, because this is how Los Angeles appears from Sarah's point of view, at least when we first meet her.

Despite the drabness and lack of depth, the image is sharp and detailed so that, for example, the individual strands of hair that Sarah pulls from her head during her bouts of self-mutilation are readily visible, as are the practical effects that mark the changes in Sarah as her association with Astraeus Pictures deepens. The ridiculous "uniform" that Sarah wears for work, the managerial bric-a-brac on Carl's desk and the elaborate furnishings of the Producer's several homes are all visible, even without the benefit of an elaborate color palette.

MPI has placed this 96-minute film on a BD-25, resulting in an average bitrate of 18.002 Mbps, which is somewhat low, even for digitally acquired material. Between the letterbox bars, the limited color and a large number of still scenes in which Sarah is staring quietly at either her own reflection or another person, the compressionist has achieved acceptable results. The only artifact is some occasional light banding, which is so brief that it probably won't be noticed by most viewers.

Starry Eyes Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Since Starry Eyes is told entirely from Sarah's point of view, the 5.1 sound mix, encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA, is subjective and non-realistic, sometimes dropping out all but a few effects, at other times raising the volume of specific sounds that Sarah finds frightening or disturbing. Stereo separation and surround effects are pronounced, e.g., at a party with Tracy's friends, where one of the guests is DJ'ing, and his voice shifts around the room as Sarah and the camera move. A second audition for Astraeus Pictures involves a mysterious process that suggests both a physical and spiritual X-ray, with bright flashes of light, quick cuts of images and strange sounds from all around. Subtler environmental cues appear in audition rooms, in the Producer's various homes and at Big Taters. Dialogue is clearly reproduced.

The score by Jonathan Snipes (Room 237) is very different from what the directors originally imagined for Starry Eyes, but their commentary explains how they were introduced to Snipes and persuaded to try a synth-based score, which they came to feel better suited the film's spooky tone.

Starry Eyes Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary with Writer/Directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer and Producer Travis Stevens: The directors and their producer describe the logistics of the challenging schedule, which involved filming out of sequence to fit the availability of the locations. The directors also discuss their casting, both of Alex Essoe and of the supporting parts, and they describe the arcs of the various characters, nearly all of whom end up in different places than where they started. It's a thoughtful commentary by filmmakers who knew what they wanted and are clearly thrilled that they managed to find a lead actress who was able to deliver it so effectively.



• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 2.40:1; 11:37): The scenes are not listed or selectable separately. Many are alternate versions or extensions of scenes in the finished film. Others provide additional glimpses into Sarah's inner world.



• Jonathan Snipes Music Video (1080p; 1.78:1; 2:35): The film's composer is seen at work on the score.



• Alex Essoe Audition Video (1080p; 1.78:1; 13:52): The commentary describes the audition process. Several sessions have been edited together.



• Behind the Scenes Photo Gallery (1080p; 1.78:1; 9:49).



• Trailer (1080p; 2.40:1; 1:58): "How far would you go to be a star?"



• Additional Trailers: At startup the disc plays trailers for Summer of Blood, LFO: The Movie and Late Phases: Night of the Lone Wolf, which can be skipped with the chapter forward button and are not otherwise available once the disc loads.

Starry Eyes Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Starry Eyes is a small film elevated by a big performance. It draws on familiar tropes and themes but reinvents them as it goes along so that, when it explodes in a bloody mess, the violence has a visceral impact beyond the sheer body count. It isn't the evil of Astraeus Pictures that ends up being frightening (in many ways, the Astraeus clan is almost comical). It's the evil they draw to them. Original and highly recommended.