Blu-ray Review: Scary Movie

THE MOVIE: 3 stars out of 5

Scary movie is a satire of the horror film genre filled with sophomoric humor and sight gags. Not exactly high brow humor and not in the class of Shawn of the Dead but I am sure that many will find this film enjoyable. Light Friday or Saturday night fare but not recommended for kids 13 and under as there is a lot of sexual references and innuendo.

THE VIDEO: 3 3/4 stars out of 5

The transfer of this film, encoded with AVC, while good, is not among the top tier of releases on either format. On the good side, the color accuracy is excellent with vibrant colors and good black levels. The downside? There is not much here in the way of detail and the film on the whole, looks rather soft. As an example, while skin tones are very good, there is a complete lack of detail in the faces of the actors, as if all the detail was air brushed away, even on closeups. This lack of detail results in a rather flat image. I have no way of knowing whether this is how the film was intended to look or not without seeing the master. Nonetheless, the video quality of this release will not make you leap off your seat and is really middle of the road in terms of picture quality.

THE AUDIO: 3 3/4 stars out of 5

For me, the audio presentation pretty much mirrored that of the video, rather middle of the road. The high rez audio track is presented in uncompressed PCM 48hKz/16 bit and standard Dolby Digital 5.1. The overall sound is rather pleasing, sounding smooth and open. Bass is solid if not spectacular. However, the audio does not grab you they way one would expect with a movie such as this. The overall sound of the track can best be described as laidback. I thought that a more appropriate use of the soundfield could have been utilized for this film. I am sure that the audio encode is true to the intent of the director and hence the overall score. I just think that it could have been better produced.

IN CONCLUSION

Neither the film nor the video and audio quality on the disc wouId make me have to run out and buy this disc. I would rate this one as a rental.

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