Cold Call (2019*)/Dark Web: Cicada 3301 (2021/Lionsgate Blu-ray)/Little Things (2020/Warner Blu-ray)/Morgue (2019/Well Go Blu-ray)/One Lane Bridge (2020*)/Songbird (2020/Universal Blu-ray)/The Sounds (2020*)/Wisting: Season 1 (2019/*all Acorn DVDs)

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

Here's a group of thrillers that are often stranger than usual....

We start with a concept you would not see in the U.S., a tale about a woman who is scammed on the phone. It is the kind of thing the U.S. media actually encourages by default with its silence in the fictional world. In Cold Call (2019) set in Britain, June (Sally Lindsay) somehow falls for such a scam and her savings account is cleaned out. With the given you will have pity for her and not blame her for what happens, you keep watching the 4-episode show hoping it will get more interesting.

Instead, it gets more and more convoluted and less and less believable, ruining any suspension of disbelief when all is said and done. I really wanted this to work, but no luck. It has been released as part of the Sundance Now series of discs, two more of which are covered below.

There are no extras.

If you try to summarize the plot of this colorful action thriller Dark Web: Cicada 3301 (2021) then you may have the IQ of Sherlock Holmes. In other words, this movie makes absolutely no sense from the opening frames to the ending. A lot of pretty looking people, some off the wall jokes, and a tying back to the Dark Web. Don't forget onscreen stylized subtitles that pop up like a cartoon with swear words. I seriously think a teenager wrote this thing.

The film stars Jack Kesy, Ron Funches, Kris Holden-Ried, Tomaso Sanelli, and Chris Violette.

Special Features:

Commentary with the Director and Producers

Deleted Scenes

a theatrical trailer for this and other Lionsgate films

John Lee Hancock's The Little Things (2020) is the new Denzel Washington thriller, where he is a police man this time in a small town who lands up having to take a trip to the larger city nearby that was his previous turf, though wee find out he had unusual reasons for leaving. When he gets there. Now, a killer is on the loose who is stabbing women to death and a new detective (Rami Malek) is leading the investigation in his cold, no-nonsense way.

The two clash when Deke (Washington) has to stay longer and at first, it looks like this will help the killer, but they eventually find common ground as the killings continue.

Jared Leto shows up as the prime suspect, but more is going on here as the script wants to go beyond the genre (think the likes of Thunderheart with Val Kilmer) and the film tries for something different than just another complex mystery with realism that is more effective here than in many such films of the last few years in this genre.

For what it tries, it is somewhat successful, though that means it is not totally going to be an outright thriller, but it works just well enough to recommend and we get some good acting with some good suspense. I can see why it was a hit, even a surprise one. Now I can see why.

Extras include Digital Copy and two featurettes: Four Shades Of Blue looks at Washington's previous Warner feature films playing different kinds of police officers, while A Contrast In Styles looks at the characters played by Washington and Malek.

If you're looking for some spooky foreign psychological horror then the Spanish language genre film, Morgue (2019), now on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA, is worth checking out. The film follows a young Spanish man who is in freak car accident and wakes up to call to watch a morgue overnight as a security guard. Once he has left to his own devices, he finds that a supernatural presence is not very happy with him and threatens his every move, but to what purpose?

The film stars Francisco Ayala, Maria del Mar Fernandez, and Abel Martinez.

The only extra is a trailer.

I didn't have the highest of expectations for Morgue (2019), but found it to be pretty impressive in terms of a low budget thriller. The theme and ending is a bit predictable, but some of the scares and mood setting along the way makes it worth a recommendation.

One Lane Bridge (2020) is our second Sundance Now entry, from New Zealand, about people turning up dead at the title locale, though in this case, we do not have a mere police procedural, but a limited series that is trying to be a supernatural thriller. That part is simply never convincing, despite a decent cast of actors including Dominic Ona-Ariki, who is able to carry this uneven series.

The biggest problem is that the makers seem to know little about supernatural narratives and this cannot escape being a police procedural. Too bad, because this had much more potential. You get six episodes on two DVDs.

There are no extras.

Leave it to producer Michael Bay to make a movie about the mutation of the COVID virus before the inevitable onslaught of films that we are likely to endure over the next ten years. This modestly budgeted film, which was made around the 2 million mark, the characters within Songbird (2020) are likely to annoy you more the virus itself. Despite a decent performance by Demi Moore opposite Bradley Whitford (Get Out) and the underrated actress Alexandra Daddario, there isn't much else in this film which looks like it was inspired a bit TOO MUCH by the look of late Tony Scott movies such as Domino and Deja Vu. At the end of the day, I'm not sure what the mission of this film exactly was: to scare the already terrified public about the evolution of a real virus or to just made a subpar rip off of Tony Scott movies?

The film features a lot of famous faces including Peter Stormare, Craig Ferguson, KJ Apa, Sofia Carson, and Paul Walter Hauser.

The COVID-23 virus comes to life and mankind gets under super scary lockdown mode. In this dark future, a bicycle carrier who is immune struggles to save his quarantined girlfriend from being put in a camp. The film explores a few other storylines revolving around unlikeable people dealing badly within in this world.

Special Features:

Deleted Scenes with Commentary by Director/Co-Writer Adam Mason

The Story of Songbird Featurette

"Kingdom" Promo Video

The Making of "Kingdom" Featurette

Feature Commentary by Director/Co-Writer Adam Mason and Co-Writer Simon Boyes

Songbird is a mixed bag. There's a few cool moments and decent performances as noted by some credible actors, but overall it feels a bit too soon to make a movie about COVID in this Michael Bay-ish manner.

The Sounds (2020) has a couple looking forward to a happy new life in a New Zealand town, only to have one of them disappear. Maggie (Rachelle Leferve) already sees something is wrong on her arrival, then her husband Tom (Matt Whelan from Narcos) is the one who takes a trip and does not return. That has more people, many she does not know or necessarily trust, getting involved, including a woman in the Maori community who is unhappy with everything.

Unfortunately, this has too many turns to stay believable over its eight episodes (maybe less would have been better) and despite some fine scenery, this just does not work well when it all adds up, which is barely.

A Behind-The Scenes featurette is the only extra.

Finally, we have our final Sundance Now series, an import from Norway about a detective called Wisting: Season 1 (2019) with Sven Nordin as the title character, soon joined by Carrie-Anne Moss. Skeletal remains are found in the snow in Norway and he is the one who has to investigate, but it is more than a missing persons case. They have a serial killer from the U.S. and an FBI agent (Moss) has been sent over to help. They clash, but have the same goals of course.

From there, the 10 episodes (!!!) go all over the place and though a few parts do work, it is not enough to justify all of this. However, if you get into it and like it early, you will likely be able to stay with it, so you'll have to see this one for yourself and decide. The locales are a plus and it is always nice to see Moss.

There are no extras.

Now for playback performance. The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on Little Things is a solid digital shoot with the right atmosphere and use of light, without being cliched. Color is not bad and composition is smart. Though this may be dialogue-based half the time, the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix has music and impact when it needs to and the use of classic soul and pop songs is better than what we usually get. The soundfield is always consistent.

Dark Web: Cicada 3301 is presented in 1080p high definition on Blu-ray disc with a 2.00 X 1 widescreen aspect ratio and a DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix. The presentation is fine and as noted this is a colorful piece. There was obviously a budget to it somewhere as the production look itself is sleek and there are scenes with production value. It's just story-wise, this is a joke.

Morgue is presented in 1080p high definition on Blu-ray disc with an MPEG-4 AVC codec and a widescreen aspect ratio of 2.39 X 1 paired with a lossless Spanish DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit) and a lossy Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo mix as well. The film doesn't look bad on Blu-ray by any means even though the production was likely on the lower end. You can see in dark scenes and the filmmaking overall is pretty solid. There's an interesting score and soundtrack full of jump scares and the special effects are a mix of practical and digital, and neither too bad.

Songbird is presented in 1080p high definition on Blu-ray disc with a 2.39 X 1 widescreen aspect ratio and a lossless DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 mix, both of which are the norm for the format. The colors used here are all over the place, but at times interesting. The film has a handheld and kinetic field and a score that changes genres depending on scene. There is an overall Michael Bay-ish feel to some scenes, but overall the presentation is fine.

Finally, the anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image (save 2 X 1 on Sounds) looks as good as current HD productions on the older DVD format can, though Wisting is a little softer despite some god color in a few overseas productions where the detail becomes slightly blurred and it is not necessarily an artistic choice as I have seen this on some soccer games. Otherwise, they look fine. All four have lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound, but Cold and Bridge are a little weaker and thinner than I would have liked sonically, so be careful of high volume playback and volume switching in those cases.

- Nicholas Sheffo (Acorn, Things) and James Lockhart

https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/