The Loneliest Boy in the World Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.0

The Loneliest Boy in the World Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 17, 2022

If you're the sort of person for whom ALF serves as a potent piece of nostalgia rather than a half forgotten gonzo sitcom, The Loneliest Boy in the World may be the film for you, since ALF is among the television shows the title character in this film habitually watches. I'd also add that any film that begins with a source cue culled from the great discography of another half forgotten 1980s (and early 1990s) phenomenon, the fantastic UK band Go West, and then ends with a cover version of what is probably their best (only?) remembered song, "The King of Wishful Thinking", has something to recommend it, but that may be damning with faint praise. The Loneliest Boy in the World often plays like a half baked pilot for a sitcom itself, and in fact it echoes in a way the currently successful Ghosts: Season One in that the focal character is surrounded by a bunch of dead people. Ghosts features some spectacularly great looking corpses (and/or spirits), though, while The Loneliest Boy in the World is considerably more grotesque, in that the "ghosts" in this enterprise are more like zombies, magically reanimated corpses that in fact "the loneliest boy in the world" has disinterred in order to have a "new, improved" (?) family after he's left orphaned.

There's a lot left unexplained in The Loneliest Boy in the World, and in fact the film seems to want to coast on its peculiar brand of whimsy, which sees isolated man child Oliver (Max Harwood) threatened with (re)institutionalization by two social workers, Margot (Ashley Benson) and Julius (Evan Ross), if he doesn't find a friend within a week. Even this supposedly basic setup is littered with unclear context, especially with regard to Oliver's past, which evidently included his recently deceased mother (Carole Ann Watts) having kept Oliver from any social interactions for his entire life for reasons which are never detailed. The fact that Oliver's house seems to be a midcentury sitcom set itself and is in a community rather oddly branded as Hubris adds even more consternation to the puzzle.

All of those questions perhaps recede slightly once the story's main conceit is, well, unearthed, when Oliver digs up a bunch of corpses to have "companions", and then they magically come to life and assume the roles of his supposed nuclear family. The film kinda sorta plays with the idea that maybe, just maybe, none of this is really happening and it's all just in Oliver's imagination, until it doesn't, frankly, with clear indications that these zombies are in fact real and are traipsing around Oliver's home, leaving small chunks of their rotting flesh on the floor in the process. Of course, Oliver and his new "family" have to contend with occasional interloping from the outside world, which is when putative hilarity ensues, except, again, it really doesn't.

There is some supposed subtext here about loss and grieving, but it's (sorry about this) buried underneath clunky writing and a presentational ambience that plays like a living cartoon, something that may not be especially helpful in developing honest human emotion. Had The Loneliest Boy in the World gone for the gusto with regard to either blacker than black comedy or more heartfelt character beats, it might have had more resonance. It's an odd film, to be sure, but it's one where that oddness may be its only real calling card, aside from ALF and Go West, of course.

The Loneliest Boy in the World Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Loneliest Boy in the World is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there doesn't seem to be a ton of technical information online that I was able to dredge up, but this is a competently captured film that I'm assuming had a 2K DI (as always with my reviews, if anyone has authoritative information, private message me and I'll happily update things here). The best thing about this presentation is its often extremely vivid palette, one which exploits all sorts of candy colored pink tones in terms of Oliver's weird domicile, while reverting to relatively more "normal" tones in a number of exterior shots. Detail levels are appealing and/or squirm inducing as the case may be throughout, with some of the ooey gooey zombie makeup looking nicely slimy. The film engages in some "retro" flourishes that mimic VHS tracking difficulties (see screenshot 3 for one example), for no apparent reason other than I guess the implied nostalgia factor. There are some passing issues with banding that can be spotted during sudden light changes and especially in a couple of prolonged fadeouts. My score is 4.25.

The Loneliest Boy in the World Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Loneliest Boy in the World features an intermittently immersive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. As mentioned above, both source cues as some fun "new" music courtesy of The Invisible Men (including a rather enjoyable cover of "The King of Wishful Thinking") provide clear engagement of the side and rear channels, and a number of the outdoor scenes also offer good placement of ambient environmental effects. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

The Loneliest Boy in the World Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Behind the Scenes (HD; 5:07) may inadvertently offer more self absorption on the part of some of the performers than they may have intended.


• Trailer (HD; 2:20)

Note: As tends to be the case with Well Go USA Blu-ray releases, the disc has been authored so that supplements follow one another automatically (so that clicking on Behind the Scenes is essentially a Play All button. The disc is also authored to automatically move on to trailers for other Well Go USA releases after the Trailer for this film plays. Those trailers for other Well Go USA releases also play automatically at disc boot up.

The Loneliest Boy in the World Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Loneliest Boy in the World has a lot of style pretty desperately in search of a little substance. There's simply too much left unexplained or uncontextualized in this film for it to ever register very strongly on an emotional level, but it does offer some fun production design, for those who care about such things. Technical merits are generally solid for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.