Baby
Blues (2013/Well Go USA
Blu-ray)/Grindhouse
Trailer Classics (2014
Movie Trailer Compilation/InterVision DVD)
Picture:
B-/C Sound: B-/C Extras: C-/C+ Main Programs: C+/B
Horror
fans will be interested in the following releases...
Po-Chih
Leong's Baby
Blues
(2013) is the latest devil doll film in that occasional cycle that
always gets people's interest. This time, a nice couple expecting a
child move into a really nice house as they are moving up in the
world, but a local man warns them that they will not be living there
for long because the place is haunted. Then they find a doll with
very large eyes and the usual strange things slowly begin to happen,
including imagining things that seem very real, but are not and are
not happening.
Points
to the makers for coming up with a new style of doll, but she does
not speak. Her white eyes tend to suddenly have blood on them at
different times, but not from her! The film runs 92 minutes and does
have some fun with the set-up, but at a time when the last Chucky
film moved back to a more serious, more violent tone, this seems a
little pat. Whether a sequel is intended, some of this is
unintentionally amusing and worth a look if this is your kind of
thing. Otherwise, move on.
A
trailer is the only extra.
The
Grindhouse
Trailer Classics
is another horror and exploitation movie trailer compilation, this
time running about two hours and despite covering about a dozen of
these since this website's inception, there are still some clips here
we have not seen or at least in the versions here. The repeats fit
in fine and are new to those who have not seen them before. There is
still a major pleasure of seeing them in a collection versus seeing
them in bits and pieces elsewhere, plus you never know when one of
these will be hard to see later, so these sets are always
collectible. When they go out of print, more so than you might
think.
Each
such set also reminds us how much more open filmmaking was before the
1980s made it boring and regressive, save the occasional genre
blockbuster. There are 55 here in all and all are must-sees to see
how films used to have less predictable, more amusing promotions at
the time. With what they were promoting here, it is even wilder and
more entertaining.
There
are actually extras including rare closed caption subtitles for the
trailers, plus a Poster Gallery and Emily Booth hosting a featurette
on these films called Bump
'N' Grind.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition, HD-shot image transfer on
Baby
is not bad at times, but there are some shots that look very fake,
have definition issues or even motion blur. Some shots look intended
for a 3D release that never happened. The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Grindhouse
is very mixed as expected for a compilation of older genre movie
trailers, but color is at least consistent and expect various aspect
ratios for the trailers. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) Cantonese 5.1
lossless mix on Baby
is well mixed and presented in its best moments, but tends to be
simple stereo other times in part because the makers to their credit
actually know what suspense is; something most who make horror films
these days seem clueless about. The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on
Grindhouse
is a mixed version of rough as each trailer (most sound is optical,
but I bet a few clips might have had magnetic sound) shows the age of
its audio, but all is on par with previous such compilation releases.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
