Answers To Nothing (2011/Lionsgate DVD)/Caught Inside (2010/Umbrella PAL Import DVD)/Die (2010/E1 DVD)/Splintered
(2011/Well Go USA
Blu-ray w/DVD)
Picture: C+/C/C/B-
& C+ Sound: C+/B-/C+/B & B- Extras: C/C+/C-/C Main Programs: C/C/C-/C-
PLEASE NOTE: The Caught Inside DVD set can only be operated on machines capable of
playing back DVDs that can handle Region Zero/0/Free PAL format software and
can be ordered from our friends at Umbrella Entertainment at the website
address provided at the end of the review.
And now
for four different approaches to the mystery, horror and thriller
storytelling…. that do not work…
Matthew
Leutwyler’s Answers To Nothing (2011)
would seem to be just another drama in the Crash
mode (all the characters are linked, but we learn that much, much later) but
the screenplay is miles away from the structure of that film and light years
away from its originator, Robert Altman.
Then we have a subplot about a young little girl being kidnapped that
further shows the makers did not know where they were going.
Dane Cook
is a therapist who is having sexual issues, is only turned on by another woman
instead of his wife (Elizabeth Mitchell) who is having trouble conceiving a
child. Barbara Hershey is his mother who
has issues of her own. Then we have a
police woman (Julie Benz) trying to solve the case, but also having personal
life issues and a young cop (Erik Palladino) who has a secret of his own. And that is just the beginning.
Too bad
it does not add up, in part because we have a good cast and I did not even talk
about all the characters. It is even
shot well enough, but it was still everything we had seen before and the
child-in-jeopardy bit is annoying.
Extras include two Music Videos, an Alternate Ending, Deleted Scenes of
interest and a feature length audio commentary track with Leutwyler and four
other makers of this project.
Out of
Australia comes Adam Blaiklock’s Caught
Inside (2010) starts as a trip by a group of people thinking it will be a
fun time on a ship on the ocean, but one of the guys (Ben Oxenbould, looking
like he is ready for the Sammy Hagar
Story) gets bossy, likes to drink, to bully and this all eventually leads
to him crossing the line with one of the ladies who are part of the trip. The drama quickly goes into Horror territory
when he becomes a menace who likes to beat and torture people, but can the rest
of these nicer people stop him? Is he
the only problem here?
The
answer to the latter question is not answered well and despite some nice footage
(especially of surfing), this is neither as effective as Phillip Noyce’s 1989
Australian thriller Dead Calm or
Roman Polanski’s international hit Knife
In The Water (1962). In some ways,
it is not trying to, but it also does not always know where to go, despite
generating some suspense. I liked the
actors here too. Extras include a
Theatrical Trailer. Cast/Crew interviews, Deleted Scenes of interest with Audio
Commentary and a feature length audio commentary track with Blaiklock,
Oxenbould and Director of Photography Damian Wyvill.
Here in
an unrated edition, Dominic James’ Die
(2010) wants to be upscale torture porn as a mysterious figure (John
Pyper-Ferguson) kidnaps people and makes them role a single dice (referred to
as a “die” as people are actually murdered here) in a wacky, hard to buy tale
of certain “immoral” people being kidnapped, brought to a mysterious place and
put into life and death ”tests” in a dumb idea played out. I will not name the other bad films in what
might become another lame cycle, but the acting is mixed and I was happy to see
Elias Koteas again. He deserves better
than this. Caterina Murino is also not
bad, but the die here is loaded with clichés and you are better skipping
it. A trailer is the only extras.
Finally
we have another mixed bag with a new British Horror production, Simeon
Halligan’s Splintered (2011) which wants
to be another teens-in-the-woods thriller with a difference and beyond accents
at that. When abductions begin, it is
torture porn, a serial killer, a werewolf or any combination of them all? Unfortunately, the screenplay cannot decide
and we get shades of several better films (Carpenter’s Halloween, Raw Meat, et
al) and it is not a sense of déjà vu that helps the film any leaving the actors
looking more worked up and the like than the situations call for. I did not buy most of this. Instead, it is a disappointing mess.
Still,
some good moments are here in between how this just gets more and more in the
hole the more it take son new ideas. Too
bad, because with some knowledge, discipline and more concentration, this might
have worked. Extras include trailers,
Behind The Scenes and Deleted Scenes footage.
The
anamorphically enhanced DVDs in all four cases offer 2.35 X 1 aspect ratios,
but Caught and Die are particularly weak, soft and offer more motion blur than
they should. Dark shots on Splintered are sometimes barely
viewable, but the other shots look better and the 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High
Definition image transfer on the Blu-ray version is the best looking disc here
as expected, but only by so much, yet revealing much more shadow detail in dark
scenes.
The lossy
Dolby Digital 5.1 on all four DVDs are also not great, but Nothing and Die might as
well be in stereo only with weak soundfields.
The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on the Splintered is better than its Dolby DVD
counterpart and demonstrates a good soundfield throughout.
As noted
above, you can order the Caught Inside
PAL DVD import exclusively from Umbrella at:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
