The Dead Center Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		4.5
Overall		4.0

The Dead Center Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 23, 2019

It’s kind of interesting in a way that The Dead Center is the brainchild of Billy Senese, and yet the cover art of this release rather weirdly touts both Primer and Upstream Color, albeit as creations of this film’s star, Shane Carruth. Still, isn’t it just slightly odd to so prominently feature a star’s efforts as an auteur as what might be thought of as a “calling card” for this film? In another way, though, it’s completely understandable, since those acquainted with the two aforementioned Shane Carruth outings may be better prepared than the “uninitiated” public at large for some of the more, um, opaque aspects of The Dead Center. That said, the basic narrative that Senese offers here is probably clearer than the stories in Carruth's own films, and there's a palpably creepy mood at play in The Dead Center which may make it perfect for the Hallowe'en season.

A John Doe, apparently a suicide victim, is delivered to a hospital morgue, where he’s tagged and put in a body bag. With a start, the body comes to life, gets himself out of his confinement, and stumbles through some corridors before collapsing in a nearby bed. That sets up two competing storylines that The Dead Center continues to ping pong between. The first is the “awakening” of John Doe (Jeremy Childs), who is catatonic at first, but who slowly becomes at least slightly more verbal, even if he’s still suffering from complete amnesia. A psychiatrist named Daniel Forrester (Shane Carruth) begins to try to make contact with John. The other tack the film takes is actually quite ingenious in terms of developing John's backstory, as the hospital’s medical examiner, Edward Graham (Bill Feehely), unaware that John has stumbled off into another part of the hospital, tries to figure out what has happened to the missing “body” from the morgue.

The first thing that struck me about The Dead Center is its almost frighteningly realistic recreation of an institutional setting like the hospital in general, and the psych ward in particular. Workers are stressed, there are manifest issues that repeatedly come up, and no one seems completely in control, despite best efforts. As Forrester attempts to completely engage with John, he seems to become almost obsessive about the case, and that soon plays into a whole subplot dealing with Forrester's backstory that also involves his boss, Sarah Grey (Poorna Jagannathan). Part of what ends up happening is that as weirder and weirder things keep occurring around the hospital, and John's few excursions into relative rationality include his insistence to Forrester that he's "brought something back" from his death, Sarah suspects that Forrester is experiencing a meltdown. I think this part of the film probably might have worked better if other parts weren't so clearly unambiguous about what's going on, since it's obvious something has possessed John.

Still, The Dead Center is incredibly creepy at times, aided by an almost psychedelic sound design that includes whispered voices, weird ambient noises and what may be some electronic tweaking of various effects. Performances are top notch all around, especially Jeremy Childs as the hulking John Doe at the center of both tales this often intriguing film tells.

The Dead Center Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Dead Center is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. The IMDb discloses that this was finished at a 4K DI, but has no mention of a camera. One of the photo galleries has copious pictures of Arri digital cameras (I couldn't make out which model), however, and so I'm assuming those were used at least in part, though as you may be able to make out in the screenshots with lighter backgrounds, there appears to have been digital grain added to give this a more traditionally film like appearance. Despite some intentional stylistic flourishes that Senese and cinematographer Andy Duensing employ, this is an often impressively sharp and well detailed looking presentation. There's nothing really eye popping about the production design, one which tends to offer only neutral tones like beiges and yellows* in the hospital scenes (along with a fair amount of cooler blues, especially in the morgue), but which offers really great looking fine detail in the many close-ups that are offered. Intentional softness can intrude during some effects sequences, where point of view shots can be tweaked. A couple of CGI moments aren't overly detailed, but a rather gruesome climax offers one of this film's rare excursions into "gross out" territory (there's a brief early scene involving the autopsy of a corpse which may make more squeamish viewers squirm).

*Jeremy Childs offers a rather memorable description of what some of the yellows look like in a supplement included on this disc.

The Dead Center Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Dead Center offers a really immersive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, one which gets off to a weird and intentionally schizophrenic start with a glut of whispered voices surrounding the listener. The film has a very evocative sound design, as mentioned above in the main body of the review, and some unsettling effects can waft and pan through the side and rear channels at various moments, helping to really establish an almost "haunted" ambience. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout this problem free and neatly designed track.

The Dead Center Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentaries

  Director and Cast Commentary features Billy Senese, Shane Carruth and Jeremy Childs.

  
  

  Director and Crew Commentary features Billy Senese, producers Denis Deck and Jonathan Rogers (who also co-edited with Senese) and cinematographer Andy Duensing.

• A Walk Through The Dead Center (1080p; 38:27) is a well done making of documentary featuring Senese, Carruth and several others, and includes background information as well as a look at some of the locations.


• Deleted and Alternate Scenes (1080p; 6:49)


• Cast Interviews

  Shane Carruth (funny) (1080p; 3:00)

  
  

  Shane Carruth (serious) (1080p; 3:50)

  
  

  Poorna Jagannathan (1080p; 3:24)

• Head Casting with Jeremy Childs (1080p; 1:43) is a fun piece showing the molding process to create a prop head for Childs.


• Short Films

  Intruder (1080p; 19:58)

  
  

  The Suicide Tapes (1080p; 24:52)

• Midnight Radio Theater offers several "radio plays" which are branded as "a late night listening experience":

  Insomnia (26:00)

  
  

  The Long Weekend (23:01)

  
  

  Disposable Life (31:29)

  
  

  The Suicide Tapes (26:14)

  
  

  The Woman in the Basement (32:55)

  
  

  Blood Oath (36:39)

  
  

  Flu (40:23)

  Note: While all of these are essentially audio supplements, the first minute of each offers a poster of sorts for the episode, which then fades to a black screen in order to avoid "screen burn", according to a bit of warning text.


• Trailers and Teasers

  Teaser 1 (1080p; 1:05)

  
  

  Teaser 2 (1080p; 1:03)

  
  

  Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1:30)

• Image Galleries

  Production Stills (1080p; 1:02:33)

  
  

  Behind the Scenes (1080p; 34:22)

  
  

  Poster Art (1080p; 00:30)

Additionally Arrow has provided a typically well appointed insert booklet.

The Dead Center Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There are a couple of unanswered questions some may feel are still lingering by the time The Dead Center gets to its arguably predictable last shot, but the film has an undeniable mood and some impressive performances, and the way the story is structured, while occasionally frustrating, is ultimately quite effective. This should be an interesting release for horror fans looking for something that may in fact be somewhat derivative, and perhaps a little less than completely successful, but which is still distinctive and, best of all (for horror fans, anyway), scary. Technical merits are solid, and the supplementary package is really well done. Recommended.