Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.0

Threshold Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 7, 2021

Some wag named William Shakespeare or something like that may have waxed poetic about a presumed "brave new world", and while The Bard's reference was to Mankind rather than inventions, the comment might reasonably be widened to include technologies that are completely taken for granted these days but which would probably boggle the minds of anyone from even as relatively recently as a century or so ago. The "brave new world" we ourselves live in includes such phenomena as "smart phones" which can double as cameras, and we're also living in a world full of online media which love to compile lists, and as such a cursory utilization of your favorite search engine will most likely result in several aggregations of titles of films that have indeed been shot with phones of various types. Several of these Buzzfeed-like sites mention Steven Soderbergh's Unsane as having been the first feature film to have been shot entirely with a phone, and the fact that (perhaps rather incredibly) there's an Unsane 4K release may indicate as well as anything that image quality of these "newfangled" devices might actually be pretty darned good, generally speaking. One of the things that phone shot offerings certainly prove is that it doesn't take a huge budget to get out of the gate rather quickly and easily, at least if you have a cogent idea and maybe a few friends within close enough proximity that you can rope them into helping you make a feature film. There are some appealing supplements on this disc which seem to hint that something at least a little similar to that strategy prevailed with regard to Threshold, though the genesis of the idea evidently stretched back to the high school days of writer and co-director Patrick Robert Young.

While there are a couple of tangential supporting characters that appear at least for a moment or two in Threshold, the vast swath of this film is what is typically called a "two hander", in this case between siblings Leo (Joey Millin) and Virginia (Madison West). Leo has been tasked with finding his missing sister, since his mother is suspicious that Virginia may be "using" again. And in fact the opening sequence set in a kind of "divey" hotel or rooming house would seem to support that suspicion, even if Leo is just a little bit freaked out that there's something unusual going on at the location. He does in fact find Virginia, who seems to be in the throes of either being high or perhaps withdrawal, but after a brief skirmish, she insists she's clean, has been clean for a while, and is instead suffering the after effects of some kind of bizarre ritual which has left her "bonded" psychically (but in a sense also physically) to an unknown man.

That sets the film off on what is in essence a road trip, with Leo and Virginia coming to terms with both their own family history and perhaps a few dysfunctions, while trying to find Virginia's supernatural "partner" in order to break whatever spell she may be suffering under. As is gotten into in some of the copious supplements on this disc, there was only a "script outline", and so a lot of what transpires in the film was improvised, and that gives things a refreshingly naturalistic ambience a lot of the time, but which may also tend to make things feel weirdly aimless, given the fact that there are both literal and figurative destinations the focal pair are aiming for.

This is an audacious effort by any stretch, and it does offer both Millin and West nice showcases. The film has some creepy moments, chiefly in a disturbing final few minutes, but anyone coming to Threshold thinking they're in for a "traditional" horror enterprise would be well advised to alter their expectations. While obviously micro-budgeted, there's an appealing professionalism on the production side of things, with a good use of locations.

Threshold Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Threshold is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.00:1. Arrow's insert booklet offers only the following pretty generic verbiage on the transfer:

Threshold is presented in 2:1 aspect ratio with 5.1 audio. The High Definition master was provided by the directors Powell Robinson and Patrick R. Young.

If shooting with an iPhone may be perceived as something of a gimmick, the actual results here are often surprisingly facile looking, though there are definitely some rough patches that crop up now and again. A lot of the presentation offers reasonably secure detail levels, especially in brighter lighting conditions, notably a lot of the rather good looking outdoor material. Even some of the shadowy interior scenes, as in some of the bounteous car scenes, can offer good fine detail and at least decent shadow definition. The Elevating iPhone Footage featurette listed below offers a brief overview of some of the techniques employed to alter the raw footage, and one arguable misstep was the addition of digital grain, which, when combined with other elements like mist or even dirty windshields, can tend to make things look noisy at times. There are some moments that look considerably more lo-res than the bulk of the feature (see screenshot 19).

Threshold Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Threshold features an effective if subtle DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 that tends to derive a lot of its surround activity courtesy of ambient environmental effects during the "road trip", as well as a nice accounting of Nick Chuba's moody score. The film's status as a more or less "two hander" means large swaths of the film play out with Virginia and Leo in confined spaces having conversations, and as such there simply isn't a ton of opportunity for "wow" surround activity. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

Threshold Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentaries

  Directors & Editor Commentary features Patrick Young, Powell Robinson and William Ford Conway.

  
  

  Cast & Crew Commentary features Powell Robinson, Patrick Young, Lauren Bates, Madison West, and Joey Millin.

• The Making of Threshold

  Crossing the Threshold (HD; 1:28:25) is a very interesting long form piece which gets into the genesis of the project and the shoot. There are a lot of very enjoyable interviews included.

  
  

  Elevating iPhone Footage: Color Correction Breakdown (HD; 2:57) provides a brief look at some of the work done by Kinan Chobani for the final look of the film.

• Roundtables

  Something from Nothing: Indie Genre Director Roundtable (HD; 1:01:50) features moderator Scot Weinberg with Powell Robinson and Patrick R. Young, among other young directors, in a Zoom like get together.

  
  

  The Power of Indie Horror - Acting for Unconventional Film (HD; 44:00) features moderator Zena Dixon with Madison West and Joey Millin, among other performers, in another Zoom like discussion.

• The Sounds of Threshold (HD; 24:14) is in essence the original soundtrack recording of Nick Chuba's score, playing here to stills.


• Threshold General Outline Script (HD)


• Trailer (HD; 1:52)


• Original Teaser Trailer (HD; 00:37)


• Image Gallery (HD)

Additionally, Arrow has provided their typically well appointed insert booklet.

Threshold Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Robinson and Young attracted quite a bit of attention with their earlier feature film collaboration, Bastard, and as they and some other crew members get into in some of the supplements on this disc, one of the ironies of Threshold is that this "sophomore effort" was actually less traditionally manned and planned than the first film, which had a script, schedule and all of the accoutrements that typically accompany a "real life" production. As an experiment, Threshold is actually kind of bracing, though as an actual film, I think a bit more of a defined strategy might have helped up the angst quotient considerably. Within the context of phone shot films, technical merits are surprisingly strong, and the supplemental package very engaging, for those who are considering a purchase.