Blu-ray Movie Reviews

A fragile, anxious boy, 12-year-old Oskar is regularly bullied by his stronger classmates but never strikes back. The lonely boy's wish for a friend seems to come true when he meets Eli, also 12, who moves in next door to him with her father. A pale, serious young girl, she only comes out at night and doesn't seem affected by the freezing temperatures. Coinciding with Eli's arrival is a series of inexplicable disappearances and murders. Swedish filmmaker Tomas Alfredson weaves friendship, rejection and loyalty into a disturbing and darkly atmospheric, yet poetic and unexpectedly tender tableau of adolescence.

I had the opportunity to see this in theaters but only at a local art house theater whose presentation is far from stellar. Didn’t matter though, this is a gripping story that takes a completely different view point to the modern vampire tale. In ways it is a similar plight to that which the young girl faced in the popular Interview With the Vampire story. Rather than delivering a true horror film you see the hardship of survival and dealing with adolescence, even when the soul is old. The performances and nuance of the film is engrossing and few films in this genre have been so good at capturing this kind of emotion. If you are even a middling fan of the vampire lore, this is a must see.

This HD presentation is leaps and bounds better than the film presentation I saw at my local art house cinema. The print is in superb condition here and detail and dimension is outstanding. Fine object detail and textures are preserved brilliantly and I loved the strong contrast of the outdoor sequences. My only complaint is the mild compression artifacts that I noticed here and there in the backgrounds. This only popped up on occasion, but was pretty obvious when it was there.

The soundtrack is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio and you can choose from the original Swedish dub or an English one. Magnolia has disappointed many times with their subtitles but thankfully this one gets it right. You can chose from descriptive subtitles or standard English subtitles. I hope we continue to see them nail this in the future. The soundtrack has a very good score that does wonders for the mood and atmosphere. The sound design isn’t very aggressive but it is very good at what it does. Subtle sound effects are eerie and the twisted sound of Eli’s belly will give most goose bumps. The mix has a very open spatial quality and surrounds do a great job of providing a convincing soundstage and open atmosphere.

Extras include some deleted scenes along with a short behind the scenes feature with interviews and on-set footage. You also get a photo gallery and collection of theatrical posters.

This was one of the best films of last year and unfortunately it was probably only seen by a handful of people at the most. Hopefully Hollywood doesn’t try and redo this film because I think they would lean more toward style than the outstanding substance this one offers. The Blu-ray is a great presentation of what I feel is an absolute must see for the genre.