6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Two former baseball players, Ben (Jeremy Gardner) and Mickey (Adam Cronheim), cut an aimless path across a desolate New England. They stick to the back roads and forests to steer clear of the shambling corpses that patrol the once bustling cities and towns. In order to survive, they must overcome the stark differences in each other's personalities. Ben embraces an increasingly feral, lawless, and nomadic lifestyle while Mickey is unable to accept the harsh realities of the new world and longs for the creature comforts he once took for granted. A bed, a girl, and a safe place to live. When the men intercept a radio transmission from a seemingly thriving, protected community, Mickey will stop at nothing to find it, even though it is made perfectly clear that he is not welcome.
Starring: Jeremy Gardner, Adam Cronheim, Larry Fessenden, Niels Bolle, Alana O'BrienHorror | 100% |
Supernatural | 14% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Six thousand dollars? Note to ambitious young filmmakers who think it takes mortgage sized investments to put out your little movie— that’s the amount that Jeremy Gardner allegedly spent to make The Battery, a fascinating and maybe even audacious spin on the ever popular zombie craze. Gardner doesn’t ignore or reinvent genre conventions here, only slightly skewing them at times for his own purposes. Instead of focusing on a ragtag group of people attempting to mow down as many zombies as possible, Gardner instead concentrates on two guys, baseball playing buddies of long standing, who are among the only humans still hanging on to their identities. Ben (Jeremy Gardner) is the more overtly aggressive of the duo, leaving Mickey (Adam Cronheim) to disappear behind the veil of his headphones and nonstop music. The two are simply trying to make their way through life without running into any of the walking dead, but when a zombie does occasionally cross their paths, Ben is quick with both gunfire and from time to time a pretty deadly bat. The Battery (the title refers to the “unit” of pitcher and catcher in baseball, but perhaps also tangentially to Mickey’s battery driven music listening) only has a relatively minor amount of gore, something that may upset those devoted to as much blood and guts as possible in a film like this, but it’s still an unusually unsettling piece, at least in part due to its very small scale (read small budgeted) intimacy.
The Battery is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory (an imprint of Shout! Factory) with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. Shot digitally (according to the IMDb, with a Canon 5D, a camera not exactly in the same league as higher tech models like the Red or Alexa), the film doesn't really offer mind blowing sharpness, but clarity is excellent, colors are accurate (when not graded) and the image is always stable. There's an almost Terence Malick feeling to much of the pastoral footage here, and while contrast is occasionally pushed (see screenshot 5), depth of field remains very good to excellent. Fine detail is also very good in close-ups. Considering the relatively lo-fi ambience of The Battery (including its filming conditions and technology utilized), things look remarkably good here. There are no problems with overt compression artifacts.
The Battery's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 may not be the most explosive, effects driven mix in zombie film history, but it's rather surprisingly consistent in surround activity, with both ambient environmental effects, Ryan Winford's nicely realized score and some well chosen source cues by bands filling the side and rear channels. Dialogue is very cleanly presented, and the track offers excellent fidelity and no problems to cause concern. For the record, the disc also contains a somewhat more focused and narrow DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix that is perfectly listenable.
The Battery emerges as one of the more unexpected surprises of not just recent zombie flicks, but Blu-ray releases coming out this year. It will be interesting to see if Hollywood reaches out to Gardner, obviously a talent worthy of consideration, but it will also be interesting to see if Gardner is "spoiled" by huge budgets and an ability to indulge his every cinematic whim. The Battery is smart, funny and horrifying in equal measure, and it certainly marks one of the more audaciously successful feature film debuts of a writer-director-star in recent memory. Did Orson Welles ever make a zombie film? Recommended.
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