6.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Eight volunteers find themselves fighting for their lives when a drug trial goes horribly wrong.
Starring: Aneurin Barnard, Alex Reid (III), Chris Larkin, Amit Shah, Steve EvetsHorror | 100% |
Sci-Fi | 3% |
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 SDH
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
The British are known for their stiff upper lips and understated and reserved manners, all aspects which may make their attempts to create what Americans would consider typical horror films a challenge. That may be at least one of the reasons the 2012 English entry The Facility never quite manages to scare up much more than a slightly ominous mood and a minor jolt or two as it depicts the tribulations of a small group of people who have signed up to partake in a clinical trial of a new experimental drug called Pro9, in return for which they’ll receive a handsome payday. This may seem like an unlikely premise for a horror film, but as a guy who actually did this very thing in college, subjecting myself to being injected with some sort of faux flu bug which elevated my temperature to over 100 degrees while a tube was inserted up through my nose and down my throat into my stomach so that my gastric output could be measured (I’m not joking), I can vouch for the fact that clinical trials are often gruesome affairs, albeit supposedly unintentionally. The Facility tries to up the ante by presenting a cross section of various types and cultures in the applicant pool, but writer-director Ian Clark gives the audience types rather than characters (something only highlighted by the film’s conceit of introducing each of the major patients with subtitles indicating their names and stations in life, as is shown in some of the screenshots accompanying this review), something that deprives the film of any emotional connection to the people in peril. When that shortcoming is added to the fact that the reason behind the clinical trial is never adequately explained (something that is really essential to trying to understand why all the mayhem happens), and a rather odd, uninvolving ending, The Facility may be long on mood but awfully short on actual frights.
The Facility is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cinedigm with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. This digitally shot feature has a curiously bland appearance a lot of the time, one which deals both with overblown whites and brighter color gradients in the opening, fluorescently lit, sequences but then goes the opposite route for the bulk of the film which takes place in quite dark (and often noise littered) nighttime environments. While the brighter lit moments offer reasonable sharpness and detail, a lot of the latter two thirds of the film is swathed in such murky shadow detail that it's often quite difficult to make out exactly what's happening. Colors are decent if not overwhelmingly vivid and aside from the admittedly minimal noise issues, there are no other artifacts to cause concern.
Perhaps surprisingly, there's not a whale of a lot of difference between the included DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mixes. The 5.1 mix does open up a nice low end that is quite effective in a couple of jump cuts (the boom as the character crashes into, and ultimately through, a glass door is much more present sounding in the 5.1 mix). But the sound design here is not overly ambitious, so the 2.0 mix actually suffices quite well. Fidelity is just fine on both of these tracks, and neither has any issues to report.
There are no supplements on this Blu-ray disc.
The Facility has an interesting enough premise and some nicely diverse characters, but Clark simply doesn't seem to know how to properly develop things. The film is quite nicely shot and edited, with a high level of craftsmanship for such a minimally budgeted effort, but there are simply no major scares here, something that a larger budget may have facilitated with regard to more alarming make up effects. The cast is quite good in the uniformly underwritten roles, but this is probably one facility few horror fans are going to want to check into.
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