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Category:    Home > Reviews > Thriller > Murder > Mystery > Detective > Horror > Science Fiction > Outer Space > Alien > Evidence (2013/Image Blu-ray)/Scavengers (2012/Image DVD)/Stranded (2013/Image Blu-ray)

Evidence (2013/Image Blu-ray)/Scavengers (2012/Image DVD)/Stranded (2013/Image Blu-ray)

 

Picture: B-/C/B-     Sound: B-/C+/B-     Extras: D/D/C-     Main Programs: C/C/C-

 

 

Now for three new genre films that might not have succeeded wildly, but had their moments…

 

 

Olatunde Osunsanmi’s Evidence (2013) has a good idea in combining the tired stuck-in-a story formula with long-played-out found footage yawners as a bizarre murder scene with hardly any explanation turns up at an abandoned gas station in the middle of almost nowhere.  What happened?  Why are so many people dead?  Why is the evidence so confusing?

 

Two top investigators (the underrated Radha Mitchell from Phone Booth & silly Silent Hill and Stephen Moyer from HBO’s True Blood) only have a variety of recorded and digital video sources to go by, all of which (for some reason) have oddly degraded images.  As they sit in their video room looking through each clip, they try and figure out what has happened.

 

For the first half hour, this is smart and compelling, then the script starts to take odd turns, clues start to not add up and the final pay off is so dumb as it is lazy, a cheat to some extent and lame.  That’s too bad because they have a good cast and the makings of something more, but the makers settled for second best lameness and that is what we sadly get.  Too bad!

 

There are no extras.

 

 

Travis Zariwny’s Scavengers (2012/Image DVD) is the first of our two outer space set titles, with Roark Critchlow, Jeremy London and Sean Patrick Flanery as part of a crew of space travelers who get whatever they can find of value to resell and recycle, it turns out they have competition from aliens with their own space ships.  From there, it is them versus the aliens and their selves when one of them turns up an alien artifact.

 

Though not great, I liked how it played with silent moments even when some of the sound should not have been there, but the cast has some odd chemistry and the look of the ships and designs remind one of the science fiction films and TV series that tried to imitate the original 1977 Star Wars as well as coming across like the new Battlestar Galactica as if it were trying to be the original series.  That makes for a nice change that gives it B-movie credibility for the kind of script they have, but unfortunately, they cannot come up with anything more than B-movie clichés and what could have been another pleasant surprise never happens.  Still, fans of such storytelling might find some of this interesting and it is at least a much-needed change of pace.  I just wish it was more.

 

There are no extras.

 

 

Roger Christian’s Stranded (2013) is our other outer space thriller and they have more money to work with than Scavengers, but the results are not as good as Christian Slater (aging well for his generation of actors)is the head of a military space unit who is about to encounter a killer, shape-shifting alien in a script that is very flat, is everything done much better in Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic Alien (see the Blu-ray elsewhere on this site) and throws in the gross transformation effects from the 1978 Philip Kaufmann remake of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (also on Blu-ray elsewhere on this site) guaranteeing nothing new or original will happen here.

 

Oh, and they get cut off from communications to earth and just about anywhere else.  The dialogue has some bad moments and despite the efforts of the supporting cast, all get ‘stranded’ with a poor script that does not take advantage of some new possibilities.  I even liked some of the look we get here, yet I kept thinking of how much better similar recent films like Event Horizon, Sunshine and Moon (all reviewed elsewhere on this site) looked and played versus this release.  The very curious should still see this one, but I warn all not to expect too much.

 

Extras include a Making Of featurette and Life On The Moon: The FX of Stranded featurette.

 

 

 

The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on both Blu-rays have some detail issues and obvious digital visual work, but they tie as the best-looking performers here and do not look bad throughout with some decent shots on each, especially nice for genres that are drowning these days in degraded images.  The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on Scavengers is much softer, has even more obvious digital work, is weak and color is more limited.

 

The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes on both Blu-rays have may have soundfields and mixes that are towards the front speakers, but each have a few decent sonic moments, while the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix on Scavengers is not as impressive and has the same soundfield awkwardness, but is not badly recorded and would likely sound as good as the others in a lossless presentation.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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