6.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
In a twisted social experiment, a group of 80 Americans are locked in their high-rise corporate office in Bogata, Colombia and ordered by an unknown voice coming from the company's intercom system to participate in a deadly game of kill or be killed.
Starring: Josh Brener, Adria Arjona, Michael Rooker, Tony Goldwyn, John Gallagher Jr.Horror | 100% |
Thriller | 23% |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English, French, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region free
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
I was only following orders.That statement became a mantra of sorts during the Nuremberg Trials, when a coterie of Nazis trotted it out to somehow attempt to escape responsibility for the horrifying crimes they had inflicted on Mankind. This obviously convenient rationale raised its questionable head sometime later when Adolf Eichmann was brought to justice in the early sixties, and it was then that it piqued the interest of a so-called “social psychologist” named Stanley Milgram, who began to wonder if under controlled conditions he could create an environment where a test subject would in fact “only follow orders”, even if it seemed he or she was inflicting pain on another. This Yale study, which later became so closely identified with its creator that it became known as the Milgram Experiment, had absolutely fascinating, if also quite troubling, results. While the actual “test” at the center of the study was a complete hoax, involving cohorts who were in fact not being injured, the actual test subjects were led to believe that they were administering increasing amounts of electric shocks to another participant (the cohort) who was not answering questions correctly. As Milgram himself later recounted:
I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not.In other, less academic, words, people did in fact “only follow orders”, even when those orders directly conflicted with their own pangs of conscience. Something at least somewhat similar is at play in The Belko Experiment, though Milgram’s original formula is recast through what might be seen as a combo platter of ideas from conceptual siblings The Hunger Games: Complete 4-Film Collection and Battle Royale.
The Belko Experiment is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. The film's closing credits state "captured by Alexa", and this transfer exhibits both the pluses and minuses of the technology. In decent lighting conditions, and especially when close-ups are employed, the imagery is typically very precise and sharp looking, to the point that some more squeamish viewers may avert their eyes when some decidedly graphic information is presented in its full "glory". However, large swaths of the film take place in rather dimly lit environments (especially as things proceed and the building's catacombs become a refuge), and there's a minor but definite diminution of detail levels in some of these moments. As with many Alexa offerings, there's a certain glossiness and flatness to the presentation that may work against some of the more visceral horror elements. No image instability was spotted, and similarly no compression anomalies.
Despite the overall claustrophobic ambience of much of The Belko Experiment, there's good and repeated immersion in the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. The brief opening vignette in the streets of the urban center provide an immediate kick of crowd noise, but even later once things have matriculated to the office building, there is frequent placement of discrete effects, or even crowd noises, in individual channels. A repeated sound effect accompanying people losing their heads (literally) is kind of fun and should appeal to horror fans. Occasional gunfire enters the fray and provides pops of sonic energy. Dialogue is generally rendered cleanly, though there are a number of panicked moments where people are screaming at each other and individual lines are a bit hard to parse.
The Belko Experiment will probably appeal to horror aficionados more than the general public, but even they may be questioning some of this film's ludicrous premises. I for one kept on wondering, "Doesn't even one of these people have a family member on the outside wondering what's happened to them?" And how exactly are the experiment's designers going to explain the sudden need for major LinkedIn help to refill Belko's employee coffers, as it were? That said, there are some spectacularly gruesome kill scenes in the film, even if the supposed sociological content never really registers very strongly. Technical merits are generally strong for those considering a purchase.
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Uncut
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