Why So Blu?

Bound To Vengeance (Blu-ray Review)

An official selection of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, Bound to Vengeance is the captivating crusade of one woman’s race against time to free the other captives of a depraved killer. This stylish twist on the revenge exploitation genre will be released as a Blu-ray and DVD Combo Pack on November 10^th, 2015 from Scream Factory, in partnership with IFC Midnight.  This gritty, high-octane thriller also stars Richard Tyson (Black Hawk Down) and Bianca Malinowski (Halt And Catch Fire). Fans can pre-order their copies now at ShoutFactory.com.

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Film 

Eve breaks free after being chained in a basement and abused for 9 months by a manipulative psychopath. Instead of escaping, she discovers there are other women just like her scattered around town. Now fueled with rage, she must force her captor to become the captive and lead her to the other women… before it’s too late.

Bound To Vengeance is an interesting little action/revenge tale that displays some promising direction and entertainment for its short duration.  While the film does have a slightly weak narrative turn, it overcomes that with some other surprises and unique way of working through the films plot.  It does well by some good gore, violence and mystery to carry it on.

I found the movie’s lead actress Tina Ivlev to be quite good.  She pretty much carries the film and does pretty well by it.  If anything, it’d be nice to see her as a supporting playing in a bigger movie with a seasoned cast to see what she can do.  At many times she reminded me of Claire Danes (Not in the looks department, the performance one, mind you).

Other promising talent in the film comes from the director seat.  Jose Manuel Cravioto is not someone I was familiar with and looking at his body of work I don’t think I’m supposed to be.  He shows some real skill in the film of having moody scenes, wreckless attacks and creates a great creepy atmosphere.  Cravioto does so without using the crutch of making every situation Eve faces completely dark and overly gritty.  There is a sort of character and rules to each place she travels.

My major qualm with the film is that its “shocking” twists/turns/revelations couldn’t be further from being such.  Right from the get go you can guess how a certain reveal is going to play out.  Luckily, with that knowledge in your back pocket for later, the movie does well enough be making its rescue attempt to rescue attempt entertaining that you sort of forget this is coming until the downtime.  It really stinks that its so on the nose, but at least the film makes up for it by still being entertaining instead of a boring waiting game.

If you’re looking for a nice little low budget take on the captive taking revenge kinda story, Bound To Vengeance isn’t too shabby.  Yes, you’ll see this film’s big reveal coming from a mile away, but I don’t think that’s the important part.   The journey to get there is what really sells the film.  It features some good violence, gore and performances from its leads.  Its also a quick movie that moves pretty quick too.

Video 

Encoding: MPEG-4 AVC

Resolution: 1080p

Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1

Clarity/Detail:  Bound To Vengeance is a newer film shot digitally, so its bound to have a good picture, right?  The image is crisp and solid.  Detail is very high, especially in close ups of gory details, featuring goopy blood and beaten up body parts.  Things like curtains, clothing, gritty Saw-like rooms all feature plenty of grizzly detail.

Depth:  Dimensional work is quite good here.  Smooth movements and solid spacing.

Black Levels:  Blacks are well used here.  Some detail is hidden, but for the most part the film does good work. A majority of this film is either outside at night or in a darkly lit house or corridor.  And I think they’ve done a nice job here in terms of shading and maintaining detail.

Color Reproduction:  Filters on many scenes give a nice aura.  Colors are bold and feel like they stick out as they should.  Red is gushing and well represented, of course.  Blue is another strong color. 

Flesh Tones:  Skin tones are natural and consistent throughout.  Detail such as dried blood, wrinkles, stubble and dimples on faces all come through neatly.

Noise/Artifacts: Clean

Audio 

Audio Format(s): English 5.1 DTS-HD MA, English 2.0 DTS-HD MA

Subtitles: English

Dynamics:  As expected, this has a very solid audio mix to accompany it.  Whether you choose the 5.1 experience or the 2.0 jam, its sounds quite crisp and involving.  Sound effects are well defined and the action gives this thing some good life.  There is a good balance between the score, vocals and sounds in the film.

Low Frequency Extension:  Struggles, music hits, gunfire, car doors slamming and engines humming grab the participation of the LFE.  Its a good solid player and never too overbearing.

Surround Sound Presentation:  Plenty of fun here.  You get some knocking and stuff from the rear speakers.  Action is well accounting for going back and forth and keeping pitch and placement accurate to what’s on screen.

Dialogue Reproduction:  Voices are crisp with plenty of clarity at an ideal volume.

Extras 

Bound To Vengeance comes with a DVD Copy of the film

Trailer (HD, 1:37) 

Summary 

Want a modern revenge thriller trying to do something a little original with the narrative, check out Bound To Vengeance.  This Blu-ray features some great audio and video to help the rage go further.  No extras is kind of a bummer as a commentary would have been good on this one.  I’m not sure if aside from being a Scream Factory collector you’d want to pick this one up, but I do think it makes for a very solid rental.