Film 

The film begins with Claire finishing up her shift at a local convenience store, anticipating her boyfriend to take her home. Instead someone known as Duke shows up in her boyfriends truck, and not surprisingly she accepts the ride. After an awkward several minutes of sexual advances and meaningless dialogue Claire makes it home. Shortly after Duke shows up at the front door claiming she left her earring in the truck, after refusing to let him in, he goes away. That is until he kicks in the back door and enters the house, brutally murdering Claire. Then Claire wakes up, it was all a bad dream… or was it? From here the movies plays out almost like Groundhog Day, except her day repeats with her being murdered over and over again. It sounds pretty entertaining, but believe me it’s much better in type. The ending is a bit of a surprise, but nothing that hasn’t been done before, but if I’m going to give the movie an ounce of credit it would be towards the overall plot.

Okay, so I went into this one thinking it would let me down, low expectations means never being let down, right? I think it goes without saying that I’m glad I didn’t put any faith into Salvage, which is reminiscing of the old movies I made with my friends growing up. The dialogue is laughable, which in turn led me to have no interest in the characters. Along with some horrible cinematography and direction I felt compelled to fast forward to the end credits, but as an impartial reviewer I toughed out the 79 minutes of dreadful film. What bothers me most is the plot had potential, all the way to the Twilight Zone style ending. Had it been executed completely differently I just might have enjoyed it, but as it is the cast was truly abysmal and I could not become enthralled into the story. Ultimately the point of horror movies is to scare us, to make us keep our lights on when we go to bed, and Salvage didn’t get the better of me once.

That’s putting it as simplistically as possible, and delving into it any further would be giving the film much more time than it deserves. All you need to know is the story is unique and for flickering moments bearable, but then the armature hour acting and directing make you realise just why we don’t buy Echobridge titles, even at their bargain price. This one is for you hardcore horror fans who like the handheld style, which I must give credit to for bringing a feeling of realism. But why bother wasting your time with a horror film that doesn’t scare you?

Video 

Presented in 1080p 1.78:1 aspect ratio Salvage comes to Blu-ray with some bad looking results.  Right from the get go, you will notice how incredibly bad the picture looks. The picture is incredibly soft, making detail like pours or hair very hard to see in most shots.  Color presentation is equally disappointing, coming off extremely dull, lacking any vibrancy.

I know Echobridge are releasing these titles at a budget price, but really what’s the point?  When these titles are released for Blu-ray I expect at least a noticeable upgrade in video quality.  This is not the case in these titles or any others I have seen from Echobridge.

Audio 

Salvage is given a dismal 2.0 Stereo track, one that sounds flat and is extremely front heavy.  Dialogue is presented well enough, but at times it does sound a bit muffled.  Rear and sub channel support is almost none existent, and when active are very weak sounding.   Overall the track is very weak compared to other new releases, but still it manages to present the movies material well enough.

Special Features 

Not much to report here… all we are given in an Audio Commentary with Director with Jeffery Crook and Josh Crook along with a Trailer.

Final Thoughts 

Okay, so another horror movie watched and another bust. But I’m not going to give up, I eagerly anticipate the day an original, creepy, and thrilling horror movie comes out. Sure every now and then a decent flick comes out that makes us jump once or twice, but when is there going to be another Exorcist or The Shinning, that just messes with our heads? Salvage doesn’t come anywhere close to stimulating the mind; it’s just a few brutal (and phoney) murders with a somewhat shocking ending. Tie that together with a horrible audio and video transfer hardly worth comparing to a DVD, and top it all off with literally no special features and you got another Echobridge flop. I’m going to chalk this one up in the loss column, and I suggest you take my word for it.

Jules Verne is perhaps the most sought after writer of Science Fiction, and is undeniably the father of the genre. I am still shocked that more of his writings haven’t made it to the big screen, perhaps the apperception of his stories have been lost in the generations. Back then Verne was writing about things like the internet and air conditioning, of course they were leaps and bounds away, but now being commonplace I really find it hard to dub his writings as Science Fiction. But nonetheless Mysterious Island is better known as the novel written over a hundred years ago by, of course, Jules Verne. Although I have only read bits and pieces of the novel I am looking forward to seeing how this made for TV flick with a surprisingly decent cast plays out.

Mysterious Island is in fact a sequel to the more popular novel, 20 000 Leagues Under the Sea, in which the conflicted protagonist Captain Nemo (Patrick Stewart; X Men trilogy) makes a return. The movie tells the story of five escaped prisoners from a Confederate prison camp that lands their hot air balloon on an island in the South Pacific. Almost sounds like it could be paradise right? Dead wrong, the island is a haven for bad weather, deadly animals, vicious pirates and of course the mad man Captain Nemo (who on the surface is off his rocker, but upon learning more he is extremely conflicted and kind hearted). The Island of course is shadowed by mystery, at times reminding me of the show Lost, which I’m positive, got some inspirations from this novel. The film tops of with a somewhat climatic ending which I rather enjoyed, but didn’t quite make up for an overall stale approach to what could have been a very entertaining movie.

I am really in the middle on this production to be quite honest. There was nothing so horrible about it that I absolutely dreaded it, and on the flip side there was nothing very appealing about it that will make me want to watch it again. The story wasn’t written half badly, but the acting was rather disappointing for people of Patrick Stewart’s stature. That is truly the story of this film, something done a shade above mediocrity shadowed by something slightly under the same line.

So when push comes to shove, I’m going to have to recommend staying away from this one, simply for the fact that it could have been so much better. The characters are poorly portrayed and the conflicting emotions of Captain Nemo that are portrayed in the novel are not nearly emphasized to what they should in Stewart’s performance. Some of the supporting roles weren’t done half bad, but this isn’t a business where you strive to make something mildly entertaining, and my socks weren’t near being knocked off. So if you are a big fan of the novel I really anticipate you being disappointed, but if you are just looking for something to throw in that is probably different from what you’re used to you might not be overly disappointed. With that being said, this was initially a TV movie, so wait for it to play again one day before you go out and put money down for a rental or a purchase.

Video

Presented in 1080p 1.78:1 aspect ratio Mysterious Island comes to Blu-ray with some mixed results.  The color palette used throughout the movie is the most impressive aspect of the transfer; from green to red, there is quite variety.  Unfortunately the color can look dull and lacks vibrancy.  Some scenery shots can look good, although there never seems to be a lot of detail on screen. The print seems to suffer from actifacts which again doesn’t help to show off the beautiful scenery.

Overall the picture does look better than other Echo Bridge releases, but still pales in comparison to any major studio release.

Audio

Echo Bridge has included a satisfactory 5.1 Dolby Digital track with this release.  Rear channels are active during action sequences but the quality of the sound effects range from good to poor.  The dialogue track suffers from the same problem as it comes through a bit flat, and suffers from some balancing issues.  Given the budget, the track does its best to present the material.

Special Features

• Set Design Featurette – A brief look at the sets used throughout the film.  As I stated earlier the sets pieces were quite good and this feature does an adequate job showcasing them.

• Cast/Crew Interviews – A brief discussion with various cast and crew.  The feature is a bit short, but offers a good amount of information.

Final Thoughts

A mediocre movie, but you have to remember it was made for TV which gives it a hint of decency. It’s probably better than half the made for TV movies out there, but it doesn’t stand anywhere near the big boys of Hollywood. The disc itself is rather disappointing with a subpar video transfer and a spotty audio transfer. More disappointing are the lack of features, I would have liked to have more on the contrasting elements between story and novel, or even a making of featurette. At the end of the day I’m going to have to give this disc thumbs down, and recommend you stay away from it, unless of course you can catch it on TV.

Did you ever want to like a movie so bad but you just couldn’t find one good reason to like it? That pretty much sums up how I feel about the 2005 film Mortuary. I must admit I was pretty excited when I pulled the Mortuary Blu-ray out of my mailbox, sent to my attention for review. I am quite the sucker for advertising, artwork and hype. The cover art on the Mortuary Blu-ray case just screams out that it is a movie I must love. Unfortunately, that just is not the case.

Legendary Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Poltergeist director, Tobe Hooper, returns behind the camera to direct Mortuary, a tale of a small town with a terrifying secret. Mortuary is, in all political correctness, a low-budget horror film. If you are not a fan of low budget horror films then there really is no reason to read on unless you like my slick, imaginative and sensational writing style. OK…so it must be the latter! Mortuary is a horror flick that can be had pretty cheap on the Blu-ray format. If you are paying more than $10 for this title, then I really hope dinner and a beverage was included.

The movie starts out with a recently widowed woman named Leslie Doyle (Denise Crosby) and her two children; sixteen-year old Jonathan (Dan Byrd) and young daughter Jamie (Stephanie Patton), driving into the small town of Santa Loraina, California. Leslie is a recent mortician student in search of starting her own mortuary business and finding a suitable place to live. She arrives at an abandoned mortuary and graveyard only to meet former owner, Elliot Cook (Greg Travis), and a yard full of septic sewer problems. Unknown to Leslie and the family, the mortuary and graveyard is the long-abandoned Fowler Funeral Home, which is quite the local legend. Naturally, the kids want nothing to do with the place, but Leslie is hopeful that she can clean it up and make a nice home and place of business for family. A quick tour inside the place reveals a weird looking black mold growing everywhere. Take a mental picture of what the black gooey substance Venom was made out of in Spider-Man 3 and you can visualize exactly what I am talking about here.

While Leslie begins the slow and painful process of unpacking all her family’s possessions and cleaning the abandoned funeral home up, Jonathan decides to get a job at a local diner. While working at the diner, Jonathan learns about the legend of Bobby Fowler. According to the legend, Zeb Fowler bought the land where Jonathan is now living to start up a ranching business, but something mysterious and unknown killed all the cattle. To make ends meet, Zeb ended up becoming the town mortician. The Fowler house was resurrected into a funeral home and the land was turned into a cemetery. The Fowler’s had a son named Bobby. Bobby’s face was hideously disfigured and was hidden by the shroud he always wore. At age eight, Bobby mysteriously disappeared and was never heard from again. Ten years later, his parents were horrifically discovered dead. However, the locals of Santa Loraina believe that Bobby is still alive and lives somewhere on the old Fowler land. It turns out that people’s beliefs weren’t all that incorrect.

This does not sound bad so far does it? If I were reading this review I would certainly be hooked by now as this is the kind of movie that would seem to interest me. Unfortunately, at least for me, the movie started to take a downward spiral as the horror begins to unfold. Up until now the tension and plot are growing and the movie is quite a suspenseful piece. But once we get into the gory activities that begin to unfold, it suddenly becomes apparent how low budget and awful this movie really is. Dialogue lines like cops wanting to stop teenagers from having sex in the graveyard to prevent “graveyard babies” don’t help either. The movie transforms from the suspenseful piece it was, to a low-budget zombie type of movie as everyone that interacts with the black Venom-like substance I described above gets reanimated into flesh eating zombies. Does that sound familiar? Yep, it sounds like just about every other zombie movie, sadly of course without the strippers. I guess I would not have had such a huge problem with this turnaround of events if it were not for the horrible special effects. The 1977 release of Star Wars had better special effects then this movie. If you are brave and set your sights on watching this, you will see just what I mean in the final minutes of the film. That is all I will say. It is a shame too because I really thought I had something special here for the first twenty minutes or so of this feature. I guess I really should have paid more attention to the tagline on the cover of the Blu-ray case that reads “when the dead break free, all hell breaks loose,” than I did with the cover art itself. Then I would have known I was dealing with a zombie movie. Oh well…you win some and you lose some.

Video

To my surprise, for a 2008 Blu-ray release, Echo Bridge Home Entertainment brings Mortuary to the Blu-ray format with only an MPEG-2 video transfer. The video encode is still 1080P with a full 16×9, 1.78:1 aspect ratio. I guess I can’t get over the fact that they only used MPEG-2. For what it is worth, I can’t say I blame them either, especially if they are going after the low budget horror film look and feel that is. I would say that the video quality closely resembles the Blu-ray release of The Shining. The Shining looked pretty good on the Blu-ray format, but you also have to consider how old that movie really is. So when I say that a 2005 movie, such as Mortuary here, looks as good as The Shining, that is not saying a lot for it. The video quality was problematic throughout. There are black speckles, white speckles and video noise popping up frequently through the duration of the film. This was very annoying at times. I keep trying to remind myself that this is a low budget horror film, but I can’t help feeling that this should have looked better for a movie that was released in 2005. My wife and I were commenting how solid the blacks were with no grain present until this one shot of a house door being opened for a cop. That was worse then the grainy exterior shots of Harry’s mansion in Spider-man 3.

Audio

You didn’t honestly think Mortuary’s problems would end with its video quality did you? Echo Bridge Home Entertainment fails to deliver the High-Definition experience in the audio department. Keeping in tradition with its low-budget feel, Mortuary comes to the Blu-ray format with the default Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track. Also included on the disc are a DTS 5.1 surround track, a Dolby 2.0 stereo track and another questionable PCM 2.0 stereo track. I really miss the days of Blu-ray’s infancy and the included PCM lossless audio tracks, but a PCM stereo track? Why even bother? The good thing is that the audio sound track is loud. The bad thing about it is everything else. There is some very strong bass throughout the film that would be a crowd pleaser in just about every other Blu-ray release, but the problem child here is the dialogue track. This is my biggest pet peeve in the audio department. I have watched some pretty low budget movies in the past but this takes the gold in the poor dialogue class. It is hard to explain but the vocal tracks just sound fake and artificial. The dialogue at times is also unintelligible. The only other thing I would like to comment on is for a low budget movie they really made effective use of the rear channels, which kind of surprises me since it has such an awful dialogue track.

Special Features

Echo Bridge Home Entertainment provides us with only three pieces of supplemental material here. Like the film, the special features are nothing spectacular. Here is where it gets very weird. The back covert art lists the special features as being in Full High-Definition 1080P. The 1080 part may be true when you press the display button on your television remote, but it is so far from true. If Standard-Definition material presented in widescreen, cropped with 4:3 black sidebars and a display rendering of 1080 is your cup of tea, then your wish has been fulfilled. I certainly hope that is not the dream of any reader here. The special features are listed below in the order they appear on the back of the Blu-ray cover art.

Theatrical Trailer – (HD ?) Have you ever seen a theatrical trailer clock in at 13:49? Well look no more. That is what we have here. It is more like a chopped up collage of film events wasting about fourteen minutes of your life. If you already watched the movie there is no need to suffer through this one.

Unrated Director’s Commentary – (HD) If you just can’t get enough of Mortuary, then why not spend the time watching it again with the director’s audio commentary track. I have no idea why they refer to this as unrated. The movie itself is not an unrated edition.

Inside the Graveyard – (HD) This 53-minute behind-the-scenes featurette is hosted by director Tobe Hooper. Again, this featurette is listed also listed as unrated. I have no clue as to why. Inside the Graveyard is presented in MPEG-2 video with two-channel audio. I already know what you are thinking. It is a real High-Definition treat for the fans. Anyway, if you really do happen to be a fan of Mortuary after your first watch, then this would be your next logical stop on the Blu-ray as they deconstruct the making of Mortuary and the graveyard sets.

Final Thoughts

I admit to being a sucker drawn into the hype of this movie from just my first glance at the cover art. If I had no previous knowledge and saw this Blu-ray disk sitting on the shelf of my local B&M store for a price under $10, I would have bought this with no hesitation. I call that effective advertising. That is where I fault myself as I tend to get into all the glitter and sex-appeal of objects without realizing that all that glitters is not always gold. That is certainly the case with Mortuary here. I am not sure if it was the director’s intent to make this feel extremely low budget, but I just can’t help thinking the following. If you do not have the money to effectively translate your special effects on the big screen then why do it? I take great pride in my work so I know I would never release something like this. Like I said previously in my review for the first twenty minutes or so, Mortuary effectively hooked you in with a feeling of suspense much like the low-budget 1978 John Carpenter’s Halloween did. Unlike Halloween, Mortuary decided to push the envelope and present special effects they either did not have the means to deliver or the money to do so. If they would have continued along the path of suspense that the film began with, then I think I would be taking a different train of thought throughout my review and maybe in the direction of the praise department. With that being said, unless you are glutton for punishment, I highly suggest a rental of this film before committing to a purchase. Even with a rental I could not help feeling ripped off as this title can be had as low as $8.99 on Amazon at the time of this writing and a rental could cost you upwards of $5 at some stores. If you are a fan of the low budget horror genre, then this may just be your holy grail. For a meticulous person like myself, I demand higher production quality to meet my extremely high criteria and maintenance levels. Final thoughts…enter the Mortuary with extreme caution and don’t say I did not tell you so.

I get my kicks watching horror films; from spine chillers to hack and slashes I’ve loved them and hated them alike. Sure I find it extremely hard to debate that they make horror films like they used to, but even in a market flooded with teenagers getting murdered I have found some gems amidst the depths of crap. What I hope you take from that preamble is that I love horror films low budget teen thrillers and classics alike, and like any respectable reviewer am unbiased towards what might be preconceived as a horrible movie. Now I’ll just cut to the chase, I say all this so that when you read on and learn just how much I hated this movie you will understand that I speak with the outmost sincerity.

The Woods Have Eyes tells the story of a group of teenagers who go out on a day hike to find the cabin of the notorious Cappy, who is known to kill anyone he finds wandering his woods. As it turns out Cappy isn’t an urban legend and has the help of two psychopathic and jacked up sons. Like so many movies before the game of cat and mouse plays out, but in an extremely amateur and boring manner. Then after wasting an hour and a half of the worst acting you have ever seen, the ending is the definition of anti climatic.

To be perfectly blunt, The Woods Have Eyes isn’t worth the disc it’s embedded on. It’s not worth the amount of energy being taken to produce the liquid crystals on your screen so you can read how horrible it is. If I could describe this movie in one word it would simply be horrid. If I didn’t feel so compelled to tell you why to stay away from this movie I would simply suggest never watching it and leave it at that, so if you must know why this movie was utter trash, please read on.

Initially I was a bit sceptical with the handheld camera, but that hasn’t stopped me from liking movies in the past, so I trekked on hoping to find something I could like with this movie. But the shear lack of quality in cinematography eventually wore extremely thin, with shaky shots and horrid angles I really had to psyche myself up to continue on. There were times where I literally thought this movie was a spoof, with so much clichés and campy scenes. Then I realized that the filmmakers actually thought they were making a horror movie which saddens me further. The played out plot (which brings nothing unique to the oversaturated horror market) wasn’t even near as ludicrous as the acting in this movie. Why did they choose this cast when they could have walked into an elementary school play and grabbed more convincing actors? The poorly written dialogue was delivered in the most cardboard of ways; these guys must be straight from the sets of a porno movie. Then after the horrid plot plays out the ending was just the icing on the dreadful cake. I could go on for hours in detail just why this movie was so bad, but I’m going to wrap it up as it doesn’t deserve to be discussed any further.

There you have it, a horrible movie reminiscent of my juvenile filmmaking, nay; it doesn’t even deserve to be put at that level. I am sincerely apologetic that you had to waste several minutes even reading about this film (if you want to call it that), but nowhere near as sorry as I am for having lost out on two hours of my life that could have been better spent watching paint dry, watching snails race, or even watching Dane Cook do stand up. So if you have any sensibility at all, do not rent this movie, do not buy this movie, ultimately forget you even heard its name.

Video

Presented in 1080p 1.78:1 aspect ratio The Woods Have Eyes comes to Blu-ray with horrible results.  As soon as the movie starts I knew this was going to be one ugly looking transfer.

Color vibrancy is dull and unrealistic. The print itself also lacks, with compression artifacts and a soft look present throughout the entire film.  This is definitely one of the worst looking transfers I have seen on Blu-ray.  I understand this is a budget title, but what is the point of releasing it on Blu-ray when they look worse than a DVD?

Audio

Echo Bridge equips the film with a subpar 2.0 Stereo track. Considering the horrid acting, a poor audio track may be a blessing in disguise. Dialogue has a tinny sound throughout the movie and rear support is practically nonexistent. Overall we are given a horrid audio track; even fans of this movie will be disappointed.

Special Features

Very few special features on the disc.  Again this actually might be a good thing considering how bad this movie was.

• Stunt Featurette – A short look at the stunts in the movie, nothing here a 90yr old Jackie Chan in a wheel chair couldn’t do.

• Blooper Reel – An unfunny blooper reel.

Final Thoughts

If I was Agent K and we lived in the Men in Black world, I would literally make it my life’s ambition to use the Neuralyzer on everyone who has seen this movie and replace their memories with something much more pleasant, like being shot. Apart from the film itself I don’t even know how you can call this a Blu ray disc, handheld cinematography or not, no Blu ray disc should look like an early 90′s video camera transfer to VHS. The audio is just as spotty, but at times I was pleased I couldn’t hear the dialogue as well as I should have been able to. Tie all that together with the almost nonexistent special features and you have a truly horrible disc, please do not rent, buy, or even speak of this movie.