The Long Night Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		2.0

The Long Night Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 31, 2022

Some of you with mysterious family histories may know how meaningful it can be to actually discover facts about ancestors and to try to piece together missing "branches" from your family tree. Hopefully no one researching their ancestral past will uncover the same sort of "issues" that Grace Covington (Scout Taylor-Compton) does in The Long Night, but the film's supposed "mystery" as to what exactly is going on once Grace does decide to investigate her supposedly unknown parentage is broadcast so clearly, at least in its basic outlines, that there is in fact no mystery whatsoever. This is yet another film which posits a seemingly helpless female surrounded by cult members and who ultimately finds out she's a "very special person", so to speak, in a plot trope that is beyond reminiscent of efforts like Rosemary's Baby. The Long Night fitfully attempts to inject its own "distinctive" take on what might be termed paganism (as opposed to outright Satanism), and yet there's an undeniably demonic aspect to some of the presentational aspects of the film, at least within the context of popular perception, including the repeated use of what is often called the "unicursal hexagram" popularized by occultist Aleister Crowley (see screenshots 3 and 18 for just two uses found in the film). The fact that the unicursal hexagram has itself become something of a horror cliché over the course of many years may indicate as well as anything how derivative so much of The Long Night ultimately is.

If The Long Night offers some passing style along with undeniable deficits in originality, the commentary on this disc may offer some passing interest as to what may have plagued the production. I'm assuming it's co-writer Mark Young that director Richard Ragsdale, screenwriting "doctor" Rich Sheppe and editor Jay Gartland are throwing under the veritable bus in the opening moments of the commentary track, but Ragsdale makes no bones about the fact that he was hired for this gig at the last minute (like, a week before the shoot was scheduled to start) and was handed an unworkable screenplay that he asked Sheppe to come in and fix. The pair was already consigned to a contracted location, and actually the stately mansion (evidently one of the oldest wood structures in the United States) and surrounding acreage provide the film with a relatively distinctive look.

There's also some passing lip service in this commentary to other elements, like a reworked opening that sought to make Grace's significant other Jack (Nolan Gerard Funk) more appealing, though a later segue to the two arguing (according to the commentary, the initially planned opening scene) still doesn't make much sense, and one way or the other how one feels about Jack turns out to be completely secondary to what is actually going on in the story (unlike, say, how one feels about a certain Guy Woodhouse and the part he has to play in an Ira Levin classic). Grace gets a lead on her unknown family history which calls her down to the South Carolina locale of the bulk of the story, though the guy who called her there is mysteriously missing when she and Jack arrive (in just the first of several pretty predictable plot points). Rather quickly the two become aware that there is a surplus of bizarre robed and masked people hanging around in the shadows, but for some unfathomable reason (at least to those who have never seen a movie of this ilk before), Grace feels at "home" and doesn't want to leave.

There's some interstitial nonsense, including a kind of gonzo turn by Jeff Fahey, but the upshot of everything, which won't be overtly spoiled here, will be completely obvious to anyone who has seen anything like the aforementioned Polanski film or other somewhat similar offerings like The Wicker Man, where a focal character discovers they're a "VIP" in a way they never expected. The film's supposedly spooky used of horned figures who workship a deity called Uktena seems almost willfully duplicative of Antlers and that film's exploitation of the so-called wendigo. In terms of other rote presentational aspects, I refer horror fans to the image seen in screenshot 6 and merely ask if anyone may have seen anything remotely similar in any other film(s).

The Long Night Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Long Night is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. The IMDb has no information of any import regarding technical data on the shoot, but the personal website of cinematographer Pierluigi Malavasi discloses Arri Alexa cameras were used with Cooke anamorphic lenses, and I'm assuming the DI was finished at 2K. As Malavasi overtly mentions in a featurette devoted to the film's cinematography (see below), director Richard Ragsdale is a fan of so-called "texture", and so as can probably be easily gleaned in many of the screenshots I've uploaded to accompany this review there is a prevalence of moody, misty and often rather dimly lit material where deficits in detail levels, perhaps intentional, are noticeable. As can also probably be made out in some of the brighter screenshots, there appears to be a pretty gritty layer of digital grain that's been added, and I'm frankly not sure it's all that helpful to the visual aesthetic (look at the skies in screenshots 8 and especially 19 to see how this approach can make things look kind of dirty). There are also a number of other "arty" moments scattered throughout the presentation, with a couple of major montages that tip into hallucinatory territory. The palette is often pretty tamped down and can tend to be on the yellow side. Unfortunately this is another Well Go USA release where there's pretty rampant banding, due in part to some of that hallucinatory material, where lighting values can suddenly change and the palette is momentarily vivid, perhaps helping to highlight obvious "ripples".

The Long Night Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Long Night features a robust DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that nicely engages the surround channels with especially noticeable engagement courtesy of an evocative and spooky score by Sherri Chung. There are a couple of startle effects introduced, but the sound design actually relies on more subtle and at times slightly hallucinatory effects that can pan and waft through the side and rear channels and help to establish a nicely moody sense of unease. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

The Long Night Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary with Director Rich Ragsdale can be accessed under the Setup Menu and also includes co-writer Rob Sheppe and editor Jay Gartland. This is a pretty "dishy" conversation in terms of offering a pretty troubled sounding pre-production and production.


• The Loop (HD; 7:40) is a short by Rich Ragsdale about a little boy getting "stuck" inside a horror film.


• Behind the Scenes

  The Birthing (HD; 5:44) focuses on the filming of the birthing scene.

  
  

  The Look (HD; 5:59) features cinematographer Pierluigi Malavasi and director Rich Ragsdale.

  
  

  The Score (HD; 6:41) features composer Sherri Chung, who talks about the influences of composers like Ligeti.

• Trailer (HD; 2:05)

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 The Loop 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 Long Night Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There's some evocative imagery at least intermittently on display in The Long Night, but necessity wasn't necessarily the mother of invention for Richard Ragsdale and Robert Sheppe, since so much of this film plays like a warmed over version of other, better remembered (and, frankly, just plain better) efforts. Technical merits range from decent if improvable (video) to rather impressive (audio), and the supplements are interesting, for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.