White Noise 2: The Light Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

White Noise 2: The Light Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman March 1, 2020

'White Noise: The Light' is currently only available in a two film bundle with 'Rosewood Lane'.

The lines between the living and the dead and the physical world and the spiritual world are blurred in White Noise: The Light, a fairly entertaining if not flawed exercise in supernatural yarn-spinning. The film explores the impact of a near death experience on a family man who is granted the ability to see and hear beyond the normal spectrum: but is it a blessing or a curse? Director Patrick Lussier's (Dracula 2000, My Bloody Valentine) film, a sequel in name only to the Michael Keaton film White Noise, delivers a capable watch that slowly deteriorates as more information comes to light, but the sum total is a fairly entertaining watch, if not one watered down by a fairly strict adherence to genre beats.

Family man Abe Dale’s (Nathan Fillion) world is shattered when he witnesses his wife and son murdered at gunpoint before his eyes. When he attempts to kill himself via overdose, he dies on an emergency room table, floating through a bright tunnel towards blinding white light, his family waiting at the end. But he is yanked back to life by an impassioned medical team. In his hospital room, he begins experiencing various hallucinations, seeming to follow strange signals and patterns through electronics and around human beings. After release from the hospital, his newfound senses are only heightened; he’s hearing strange noises and seeing eerie auras around people. He learns he may have become a “detuned receiver” according to his doctor, Karras (William MacDonald), who studies NDEs (Near Death Experiences) and who is particularly fascinated with Abe’s case. When Karras dies of a heart attack and Abe learns of a woman who was killed by gunfire, both surrounded by a visible aura, he begins to realize that he can sense those who are close to death. Impassioned by his own loss, he sets out to save anyone he can, including his nurse (Katee Sackhoff), but soon comes to realize that saving lives comes with a heavy burden.

The film is surprisingly engaging given the rather pedestrian plot and relatively safe PG-13 rating and predictable plot twists and truths. Unfortunately, the more the “detuned receiver” Abe Dale becomes more in-tune with the truth about what he’s seeing, the more likely the audience its to tune out. White Noise: The Light loses a bit of its magic when the story begins to tie in dark, satanic secrets rather than simply follow Abe as he goes with the flow of his newfound powers, coming to understand what he can see and explore what he can do about it. But as various secrets are unearthed, the film loses it touch as it at first dabbles, and then becomes immersed in, dark realities that tie back to satan, scripture, and all sorts of like complimentary content. The film really falls apart in its final minutes, at the culmination of all things whacky, but it is, and remains, a decent film in the aggregate considering its ability to draw audiences to its character: his sadness, his suspicions, his transformation to savior, and his gradual realization that his abilities may be more of a curse to himself, and to the world around him, than they are a blessing to those he saves and to his own soul.

The acting is fine. Fillion fills the lead role well, portraying the spectrum -- grief, fear, purpose, and growing terror over the truths he comes to learn -- with impressive balance and faithfulness to his character, always holding the grief but gradually letting go as he takes stock of his newfound abilities and slowly falls for his nurse. That grief turns into something resembling a psychotic breakdown when various truths about himself, and others who have also experienced the same thing, come to light. Fillion’s ability to hold pace with the character’s understandably wild emotional ebbs and flows is what keeps the movie going, even when it turns from intriguing character study to recycled genre fodder. Adrian Holmes is underutilized as Abe’s friend Marty while Katee Sackhoff does her best to build a character from the stock parts with which she is given to work. The production design is also a strength, and kudos to the sound department for ramping up the audio cues to often chilling effect, at least away from the stale, stringy jump scares.

White Noise 2: The Light Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

White Noise: The Light's 1080p picture quality is generally good, save for the occasional burst of macroblocking which, for whatever reason, seems to increase in density and frequency in the film's second half. Otherwise, the picture is pleasantly filmic, clear and fairly precise in its ability to reveal fine details with ease. Facial close-ups are of particular note for inherent complexity while broad locations details, whether hospital interiors, restaurants, or cityscapes, are sharp and expertly revealing. Colors could stand a little more contrast and depth; the palette appears a little light on its feet but it handles core tones well enough, whether clothes, faces, or even streaks of color in nurse Sherry's hair. Black levels are impressively deep. Beyond the macroblocking there are no egregious encode issues to report, nor are there any obvious source problems of note.

Note that playback froze at the 1:47 mark and again at the 7:01 mark. The error repeated with various attempts to correct. Simply fast forwarding a few seconds alleviated the issue and the film continued to play properly from there.

White Noise 2: The Light Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

White Noise: The Light features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. Towards film's start, surrounds engage quite a bit when Abe is being pulled away from, and back into, his body. It's a chaotic maelstrom off stringy, high pitched sounds that maintain clarity even through the high yield output and throttling intensity. Later in chapter three, a train rumbles through the stage with potency to spare and directional detail full of moving might. The track is not short of similar high intensity, high yield sonic moments, each of them springy, detailed, and engaging through the entire listening area. Musical presentation is quite nice. The stringy Horror notes are clear and detailed, spread well along the front and through the rears, often playing in conjunction with other spooky sounds that float and linger through the listening area. Lighter ambient supports -- often haunting cues but also general city din or location detail, including hospitals and pool halls -- carry well, too, with balanced placement and fine clarity. Dialogue is handled nicely; it's well prioritized, clear, and constant in its front-center location placement.

White Noise 2: The Light Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

White Noise: The Light includes deleted and extended scenes, three featurettes, and a trailer. No DVD or digital copies are included.

• Deleted Scenes (480i window box, 33:48 total runtime): 13 scenes are provided, each with identifying text at the start of each clip.
• The Making of White Noise: The Light (1080i, 8:36): A well-rounded piece that explores the first film's chilly vibes, this film's story and its rooting in religion and science, makeup, cast camaraderie, stunt work, and more.
• Exploring Near Death Experience (1080p, 14:56): Real world NDE accounts supported by scientifically based discussions of the phenomenon.
• Journey Into Madness (1080p, 6:00): A closer look inside a supposedly haunted shooting location.
• Trailer (480i window box, 2:10).

White Noise 2: The Light Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

White Noise: The Light gets out of the gates strong but stutters and stumbles towards the finish line. Fortunately, its early forward momentum, both story beats and Fillion's performance, keep the film going well enough to the end. Mill Creek's Blu-ray delivers a well rounded experience. Video could stand to be better but it also could have been much worse. The audio track borders on powerhouse status and the included supplements are fine in quality and quantity for a movie of this sort. Recommended.