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Wednesday, December 30, 2009

BD impressions: Book of Blood

11:54 PM / BD Impressions / 4 Comments

Combining two Clive Barker short stories, The Book of Blood and On Jerusalem Street, this low budget horror offering is actually a better film than the critics would have you believe, albeit one that is hampered by some major leaps in logic, some iffy visual effects and post production choices, and a lead actress attempting an accept she clearly isn't comfortable with. Shot in Edinburgh (a brief scene clearly filmed at Glasgow University notwithstanding), director John Harrison makes impressive use of the locale to create an eerie atmosphere, while eliciting decent performances out of a cast that is essentially limited to three players for the bulk of the film's duration. There's also a nicely ominous score by Guy Farley and some genuinely unsettling moments, most involving apparitions of children playing in the garden outside the house in which the bulk of the film is set. Unfortunately, Harrison and his co-writer Darin Silverman can't quite make certain late plot developments ring true. In particular, a character who was previously convinced of supernatural goings-on suddenly becomes all too willing to dismiss another character's claims of paranormal activity as a scam, despite it being clear to all and sundry that this is the real deal (she was even herself involved in occurrences that can't logically be explained, and yet seems to conveniently forget about them because the plot dictates it). It's far from groundbreaking, but on the whole I found it rather enjoyable.

Image quality: A difficult one, this. As with a lot of low budget films shot in HD (and, let's face it, a lot of high budget ones, too), a lot of what might be perceived as shortcomings of the transfer are in fact down to the source material itself. Facial close-ups tend to reveal an impressive level of detail, but many wider shots have a blurry, almost smudgy appearance (see Example 3), which could be the result of noise reduction added to conceal video noise but could equally well be down to the lens. I don't claim any great knowledge of digital photography and I can't find any information on what system was used for this film, so "ugly" is about as specific as I can get. It doesn't help that the bulk of the film takes place in low light, giving it a murky, greyish appearance. Not really knowing where the faults lie, I'm going to lean towards this simply being how Book of Blood looks and give it a lukewarm 7/10.

Book of Blood
studio: Lions Gate; country: UK; region code: B; codec: VC-1;
file size: 18.4 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 26.35 Mbit/sec

4 Comments

 
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