Why So Blu?

Dark Summer (Blu-ray Review)

This July, beat the summer heat with two highly stylized horror thrillers, Dark Summerand Alien Outpost, both making their Blu-ray and DVD debut on July 7^th, 2015 from Scream Factory, in partnership with IFC Midnight. Featuring exciting new bonus content including cast and crew interviews, audio commentaries, making of featurettes and more, both titles can be pre-ordered now from ShoutFactory.com.  These are both movies that have come from a line of releases already through Scream Factory from the IFC Midnight label.  Today we’ll be talking about Dark Summer starring Peter Stormare.

Film 

A claustrophobic modern ghost story, Dark Summer follows Daniel Williamson, a 17 year old under house arrest for the summer after cyberstalking a classmate. With his mother away on business, a horrifying incident occurs and Williamson soon experiences strange  supernatural occurrences–which become increasingly more sinister and terrifying, with twists that will leave audiences reeling.

While there are some shortcomings too it, Dark Summer has an intriguing enough premise and characters.  It also has a third act that really delivers some horror goods on a solid plot twist.  Unfortunately the film’s second act drags and will wind you into a bit of a lull.  Yes, I like slow burn, but its a sticky thing to pull off.  If its not working, you’re going to put your audience to sleep or have them slowly quit caring.  And that’s where I kinda found myself.  There’s really good bread here on the sandwich, but between it is a bit underwhelming.

This one sets itself up like a Disturbia (Which itself a play on Hitchcock’s Rear Window) with supernatural events.  Our lead characters is put on house arrest with the anklet for having stalked a girl.  However, instead of thinking his neighbor is a murderer, supernatural stuff keeps happening.  Of course he’s home alone because mommy is on a trip, so his teen friends help him out.  There are some nice moments here and there, and the characters do work, its just a bit dry in their attempts to beef up this film’s depth in the department of its players.

Dark Summer is a pretty well realized little original film.  There’s a competence behind and in front of the character that help sell this pretty good.  And I really did find myself quite engaged in the final act.  So while I didn’t care for the journey this thing took me on, I was quite enjoying the payout.  There are some good horror effects, intense sequences, and twists and turns that creep up and satisfy your time having watched it.

Video 

Encoding: MPEG-4 AVC

Resolution: 1o80p

Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1

Clarity/Detail:  Well, easy peasy, its a modern film shot digitally coming to Blu-ray.  The image is sharp and crisp.  Details are very high.  Sometimes it looks a tad murky in less lit scenes, but it may be the film’s atmosphere.

Depth:  There are some blurry movements in the film, but overall its a clean 3 dimensional looker.

Black Levels: Blacks are inky and there is some good shading here.  While some detail is hidden in some spots there was really no crushing or minimal at that.

Color Reproduction:  Colors are bold and pop quite nicely.  Blood looks good, blues and yellows stand out.

Flesh Tones:  Skin tones look natural and consistent.  Detail is very high as you can make out pores, stubble, blemishes and makeup lines.

Noise/Artifacts: Clean

Audio 

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

Subtitles: English, Spanish

Dynamics:  As one would expect, this track is definitely above average and plenty does the trick with making this a good experience.  The film is a bit of a slow burn, but when the track is called to action it delivers pretty well.

Low Frequency Extension:  Some thuds get a little bit of sub action, but it mainly assists a lot of musical hits during fast, action oriented bits.

Surround Sound Presentation:  Some spooky ambiance can emanate from the rear speakers at times.  The front channels have a lot of interplay and accurately portray volumes and have some fun with intense situations and scares.

Dialogue Reproduction:  Dialogue is loud, crisp and clear.

Extras 

The reverse side of the cover insert features additional imagery.

Audio Commentary

• With Director Paul Solet

Director Paul Solet (HD, 2:15) – A brief little bit where some crew and cast praise the director and he gives a brief tid bit about how he works.

A Conversation With Peter Stormare (HD, 15:52) – A pretty fun and candid interview with Peter Stormare about this film, but he also discusses his career experience and some of his film history knowledge.

The Kids – Cast Interviews (HD, 2:04) – Each actor, Paul Solet and the writer talk a little on their characters in the film.

Atmosphere and Style (HD, 1:57) – Paul Solet talks his like of the mish mash of genre in the film, his influences making this film and what his goal of what he wanted the feeling of the film to be.

The Art of Dark Summer (HD, 13:38) – Paul Solet and the art director, story boarder and set designer discuss the sort of pictures/paintings that influenced the film and that they were trying to mock up in shooting the film.  A lot of discussion on framing the shots in the film.  Very interesting.

The Music of Dark Summer (HD, 8:37) – The composer goes over his vision for the score and how he feels about the characters, conflict and the intricacies he placed on it.

Theatrical Trailer (HD, 1:58) 

Summary 

Dark Summer is an overall interesting little horror thriller that’s twist kinda finally allows you to know what sort of genre it is.  I don’t think the build up works 100% of the time, but once we hit Act III, things get a good move on  and become pretty entertaining.  The technical merits on this one are strong and the extras prove to be good enough.  I’m not sure how much this warrants a purchase, but fans of the film should be happy with this release.  Those who haven’t seen it should check it out before they buy.