5.8 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
A man becomes the superintendent of a large New York City apartment building where people mysteriously go missing.
Starring: Patrick John Flueger, Val Kilmer, Louisa Krause, Taylor Richardson, Paul Ben-VictorThriller | Insignificant |
Horror | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Digital copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 1.0 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
While it may sound churlish, maybe legendary producer Dick Wolf should stick to his ever burgeoning slate of television series like his many Law & Order outings or perhaps more saliently given one of the stars of The Super, shows like Chicago P.D.. As is documented in the actually kind of weirdly fascinating “making of” featurette included on this Blu-ray as the sole supplementary feature, Wolf came up with an idea for a horror movie nearly half a century ago, though his idea was relegated to a title (The Super, in case you were wondering), and an image for what might literally be called the film’s key art, since the only other element Wolf thought up was the tag line, “He has your keys”, and in two versions of marketing material a shadowy figure can be seen with a ring of keys either down a dark hallway or through a keyhole. That tagline turns out to be just one of several misdirections the wending screenplay by John J. McLaughlin offers as it details nefarious goings on in a Manhattan high rise where something sinister seems to be killing folks. In fact the film spends a rather long span of time detailing the first (and second) such murders, in an admittedly creepy scene that features a teacher returning home from work and trying to grade papers while also caring for what appears to be her brain damaged partner. Suffice it to say no one (human) makes it out alive, but the fact that these characters haven’t been introduced properly means there’s absolutely no (or at least fairly little) audience involvement with them, and once the film’s “big reveal” shows up around an hour and a half later, this particular set of murders, as well as potentially others that accrue during the film, don’t make any sense, at least within the explanation for things given (yes, those who pay attention to the papers the teacher is grading get at least a tangential clue to an ultimate connection, but even this seems completely random and tenuous, considering what ends up following).
The Super is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Unfortunately, the IMDb doesn't list any technical data, and I simply wasn't able to make out what kind of cameras were being used in some of the brief candid footage seen in the making of featurette. The featurette does get into how director Stefan Rick and cinematographer Stefan Ciupek were hired as a "package", since they had done some German films together (another cinematographer is also credited). The Super's often impressively stylized visuals are among its chief assets, and this high definition presentation is often quite impressive, especially given some of the darkness of the presentation, and other gambits like grading in a variety of colors, including blues, teals and browns, all three of which can hopefully be made out in various screenshots accompanying this review. I was particularly struck by fine detail levels in some of the shots that combined dimness with grading (see screenshot 6 for one example). There are a couple of minor deficits here, including some quick CGI that isn't particularly effective, and a couple of scenes in the subbasement where for one reason or another shadow detail is less effective than in the bulk of the rest of the presentation.
The Super's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is considerably more cliché ridden, filled with horror movie sound design tropes like sudden jolts of LFE accompanying jump cuts and the like, but it's still consistently effective. There are rather wide washes of sound that pour out through the surrounds when little "POV" journeys through the heat ducts occur, and some of the bustle of the building's rather opulent lobby also offer at least some discrete channelization of effects. Dialogue and score are also rendered cleanly and clearly without any problems whatsover.
There's both effective imagery and effective sound design in The Super, and in fact some interesting ideas, but too many of the latter tend to bury the benefits of the former two. It's kind of comically commendable that Wolf and his team admit this film began with nothing other than a title, a tagline and a focal image, but that's probably not quite enough to build an actual film on. Technical merits are first rate for those considering a purchase.
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