Why So Blu?

Echoes (Blu-ray Review)

An official selection of the New York City International Film Festival and FilmQuest Film Festival, winning Best Actress, Best Screenplay and Best Director honors, the highly anticipated supernatural thriller Echoes arrives on Blu-ray™ and DVD from Anchor Bay Entertainment. The feature directorial debut of Nils Timm (who also wrote the screenplay), Echoes explores the murky realm between reality and dreams, and what could happen when these worlds collide. With a stellar cast including Steven Brand (“Teen Wolf,” The Scorpion King), Kate French (Channeling, “Gossip Girl,” “One Tree Hill”), Billy Wirth(“Chicago P.D.”, The Lost Boys) and Steve Hanks (12/12/12, Hold Your Breath),Echoes will have viewers guessing until the final fade-out! 

Film 

Struggling with horrifying, sleep-paralysis induced visions, Anna, a young writer, retreats with her boyfriend to an isolated yet beautiful glass house in the desert. Hoping that the desert vistas surrounding her will spur her creative juices, she welcomes the opportunity to stay behind when her boyfriend must return to the city for urgent business.  However, Anna’s sleep paralysis does not abate, despite the calming environment. And now, her attacks are accompanied by a mysterious figure, caked with dirt as if it was made of sand itself. As the visions intensify, she finds herself on the verge of losing her mind…or is she being lead to uncover a life-threatening secret?

Well, this one started out by getting my attention with some really intriguing filmmaking.  Was this going to be different than your average Anchor Bay horror cheapie?  Unfortunately not.  Within the first ten minutes it goes away from telling the story in an interesting more artistic way and then shifts to a more traditional, paint by numbers filmmaking.  There are times throughout where the interesting photography and storytelling comes back into play, but its always very brief and not enough to re-engage the viewer into the film.

Basically, this movie looks like some guys had a friend or saw a cool glass house in the middle of the desert that they decided to write a movie around.  Some of this time here just wasn’t making sense to me why the characters were still there or didn’t leave.  But, this is one of those “one-location” horror films and that’s what it demands.  So, any way they can work to escape from there as little as possible is how it has to go.

Kate French is our lead here, and I think she does a pretty solid job, considering she has to carry the movie.  She’s pretty easy on the eyes, which helps this straight male, but she her performance is pretty decently above average.  There’s a lot of running through the desert for her and getting a light amount of beat up and dirty.  The plot of this movie is so damn obvious for the long stretch of it, but she manages to do her best to keep one entertained while they’re waiting for the inevitable “twist”.

Some hints of great artistic filmmaking and talent show up at small intervals, but its not enough to keep thi sfrom being a snoozing trudge through a psychological horror mystery we’ve seen plenty of times before.  I didn’t mention, but our “monster” in this movie does have some really awesome makeup.  That said, there really isn’t enough to recommend any of this to anyone.

Video 

Encoding: MPEG-4 AVC

Resolution: 1080p

Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1

Clarity/Detail:  While the picture is merely fine, that serves as a disappointment from a modern Anchor Bay title shot in digital HD.  The image rarely impresses, featuring a softer image with enough detail to pass by.

Depth:  For the most part, this is a rather flat image, which is disappointing as the environment where this film is shot is begging for some really great depth.

Black Levels:  Blacks are a bit on the brightened, whiter side and never do anything but help to murk up the picture a bit at times.  Though, clothing and hair follicle detail does come though.

Color Reproduction: Colors stand as rater more faded and not too striking.  To the film’s defense, it doesn’t feature a strong palette.

Flesh Tones: Skin tones work out just fine, coming as natural as the environments and lighting allow.  Detail on close ups ranges from strong to looking a little smooth at times.

Noise/Artifacts:  Some banding present during night time scenes.

Audio 

Audio Format(s): English 5.1 Dolby TrueHD

Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish

Dynamics: This is track is a pretty strong decent here.  Its a film that doesn’t ask for much and delivers a solid outing in return.  Its strength actually comes from its use of the rear speakers and placement of ambient sounds in the mix.  The effects, vocals and score are all woven individually into the mix.

Low Frequency Extension:  Not a whole lot of busy work for the subwoofer.  There are some musical cues and strong winds that benefit from the LFE.

Surround Sound Presentation:  There is good ambiance, volume control and movement in this 5.1 track.  The rear features some noises like owls and dog barks while the front manages to keep the level of dread with different pitches and intensities.

Dialogue Reproduction: Clear and clean.

Extras 

Echoes doesn’t even feature trailers before the main menu.

Summary 

Echoes isn’t really slow burn, its just slow and dragging.  The film features moments of real artistic promise and talent behind the lens, but its just way too few and far between.  This disc gives an above average presentation, but leaves you with nothing else.  This is a film that would better probably be best viewed as a rental or from a streaming service than making a purchase.  There’s light enjoyment to be taken from it, but nothing that’s going to stick with you or demand repeat viewings.