6.5 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.6 |
Two brothers team up to battle a creature under the bed, in what is being described as a "suburban nightmare" tale.
Starring: Jonny Weston, Gattlin Griffith, Peter Holden, Musetta Vander, Kelcie StranahanHorror | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 16-bit)
English SDH
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 1.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
The only suspenseful element in director Steven C. Miller's Under the Bed is whether the evil presence attacking two brothers will turn out to be an actual creature or a psychological manifestation they've generated in response to some sort of trauma. Unfortunately—and I don't feel that I'm giving away anything important here—the script by aspiring writer Eric Stolze never answers the question, trying to have the best of both worlds while delivering a few mechanical shocks that come too late in the proceedings to salvage the film. Miller and Stolze were obviously hoping to tap into primal childhood fears about monsters in closets and boogeymen in the shadows of bedrooms that appear ordinary, even cheerful, by the light of day. But they’re such literal-minded filmmakers that their imaginations seem to have stopped short at calling the film “Under the Bed” and having prosthetically enhanced limbs emerge from beneath the space where a young boy is sleeping. Everything else is left vague, except for the predictable element that Adults Don’t Get It. What they filmed should be the outline for a movie, not the shooting script. Under the Bed played various festivals before receiving a May 2013 DVD premiere in Germany under the title Es lauert im Dunkeln (literally, "It lurks in the dark") and a June DVD release in France under the title Scary. The film reached the U.S. by video on demand and in a few theatrical screenings in July, after which XLrator Media's "Macabre" line is releasing it on DVD and Blu-ray.
Like most of today's low-budget features, Under the Bed was shot digitally using the Red system. The cinematographer was Joseph White, who is no stranger to the horror genre (The Barrens and Mother's Day). The video encode on XLrator Media's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray reflects all the usual advantages of digital capture with high-end equipment: a clean, sharp and detailed image, with deep blacks, proper contrast levels and an absence of aliasing, noise or other interference. The film's color palette runs toward the cool and bluish end of the spectrum, except for a major sequence near the end, when the color scheme recalls one of those playful effects included in digital image editors (e.g., "posterization", "art", etc.). This effect is deliberate and was no doubt achieved in post-production. With no real extras, the 87-minute film resides comfortably on a BD-25 without noticeable compression errors.
Under the Bed has a few audio tricks on its lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack. Manifestations that rattle appliances, appear (perhaps) behind doors and windows and chase our two brother heroes through landscapes real and unreal create sonic "disturbances" in the surrounds, at least enough to let you know your full speaker array is working. A journey through an alternate dimension—possibly real, possibly imaginary—surrounds the viewer with haunted, windy sounds. The dialogue is clear, even if it isn't especially informative or intriguing, and the intended shocks are telegraphed (and are probably meant to be intensified) by the generic horror film score supplied by Ryan Dodson (who worked as an assistant to Tyler Bates on Watchmen).
The only extra is the film's trailer (1080p; 2.40:1; 1:53). At startup, the disc also plays trailers (in 1080p) for Saturday Morning Mystery, Inbred and American Mary, which can be skipped with the chapter forward button and are not otherwise available once the disc loads.
Under the Bed is a perfectly adequate Blu-ray, but as a horror film it's generic, dull and instantly forgettable. Skip it.
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