Wildling Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Wildling Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Brian Orndorf September 10, 2018

Co-writer/director Fritz Bohm crafts a Grimm Brothers-like tale in “Wildling,” which doesn’t set out to redefine the monster movie, enjoying a chance to play in the subgenre sandbox while dreaming up a few fresh ideas of its own. It’s a dark picture, often quite literally, and one with a plan to sneak up on audiences with scenes of unexplained behavior and baffling personalities, with hopes that when clarification sets in, the feature will have a tight grip on viewers. “Wildling” gets mostly there thanks to a chilling tone and capable performances, and while Bohm doesn’t always have the most original vision for the central metamorphosis, there’s a momentum to the endeavor that’s compelling, and its general direction toward macabre discoveries is periodically hair-raising.

Anna (Bel Powley) has spent her life locked inside an attic, raised by Daddy (Brad Dourif), an older man who fills the little girl’s head with stories about a world that was once filled with “wildlings,” keeping her away from reality as he builds a fantasy for her. As she matures, Daddy hopes to stop her natural growth, giving her daily injections to prevent her womanhood from arriving. Unable to control the situation, Daddy disappears, leaving Anna exposed to a world she doesn’t understand, soon put into the care of Officer Cooper (Liv Tyler), who lives with her little brother, Ray (Collin Kelly-Sordelet). Trying to offer Anna a normal life with love, attention, and a high school education, Cooper struggles to get comfortable with the new arrival, becoming a mother figure for the confused girl. As the weeks go by, Anna shows curiosity with the community, confronted by its bullies, but now she’s free of medication and begins to experience an awakening from deep within, triggering panic as changes take over her body.

Anna’s imprisonment is examined in the opening act of “Wilding,” which creates an unsettling atmosphere of paternal control as Daddy explains to a little girl that the room is her world, and outside there are monsters and horrors he keeps at bay. It’s dressed up as a bedtime story, keeping the child wide-eyed and firmly in one place, with Daddy graduating to hypnotism and assorted manipulations as the years pass -- the birthday joy of a cake decorated with gummi bears being the only real highlight of life for Anna. It’s a creepy opening for “Wildling,” which does an agreeable job of disorientation, keeping viewers in the dark when it comes to Daddy’s intentions, which alternate between protection and predatory (he refers to death as a “better place,” creating a desire within Anna to visit the afterlife), culminating in an unusual reveal as Anna makes the cardinal sin of menstruation, setting off an internal alarm in Daddy, who brings out daily needle injections to control whatever’s inside the kid.

“Wildling” eventually moves Anna to the real world, put into Ellen’s care, with the cop concerned about the now-teenager, offering a mother’s love to a girl who’s never experienced such attention. The screenplay delivers formulaic stretches of discovery, watching Anna come to experience new food, surroundings, and maleness in Ray, which triggers a heated concentration previously alien to her doped-up experience. There are also anxieties at school, finding Anna an easy target for bullies, and her thirst for education leads her to connect to the image of the Northern Lights, adding to a growing awareness that she’s changing. Into what exactly is the question of the movie. Anna soon finds herself at the mercy of her sudden adolescence, and “Wildling” enjoys working the metaphor of monsterdom as female sexual maturity, turning the hellacious series of changes into a primal awakening for the young woman, who tears off into the night, finding comfort in the woods, eventually sized up by The Wolf Man (James Le Gros), a feral figure on the fringe of society.

Wildling Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

For a film that's fairly comfortable existing in the dark, "Wildling" does well with its AVC encoded image (2.39:1 aspect ratio) presentation. Delineation isn't a concern, with frame information intact and communicative, giving beastly encounters a chance to retain stylishness and shadowy appeal. Detail is very strong overall, finding close-ups bringing outstanding texture from faces, with Anna's evolution from scared young thing to something else (with a lot of fur) delivered with touchable textures, extending to costuming and makeup achievements. Colors are lively, offering a colder palette to identify seasonal changes and forest encounters, while interiors achieve a warmer look through natural light. A party scene brings out bolder hues, and bloodshed keeps its redness. Skintones are natural.

Wildling Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA sound mix supplies an active listening event, with surrounds home to some directional movement in Daddy's cabin, and violence generates a more circular presence, with whizzing bullets and forest running. Dialogue exchanges are true, handling varied performances well, never slipping into distortive extremes. Scoring is defined to satisfaction, and soundtrack selections are sharp, offering clean instrumentation. Low-end offers some rumbling when Anna's hunt grows in power.

Wildling Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Deleted Scenes (5:41, HD) offer only brief snippets of character business, adding a little more to the relationship between a maturing Anna and Daddy, and some domestic integration beats between Anna and Ray.

• Outtakes (4:09, HD) are an unusual addition to a disc that's devoted to providing scares, but fans of "Wildling" are now gifted the chance to watch the cast blow lines and dissolves into giggle fits as they try to make a proper chiller.

• And a Theatrical Trailer (2:17, HD) is included.

Wildling Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

"Wildling" maintains an intriguing look at Anna's distress and curiosity, and it's fond of nighttime cinematography (by Toby Oliver), which bathes in the picture in blackness at times, making it difficult to see what's going on. And perhaps that's for the best, as Anna eventually succumbs to her destiny, leading to a hunting finale that adds all the violence and rage the film has been lacking up to this point. Bohn does a successful job bringing "Wildling" to a boil, and its ultimate reveals are satisfying, doing something with the same old monster-evolution business, even if it stops short of full panic mode.