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House on Pine Street (The)
R2 - United Kingdom - Second Sight Review written by and copyright: Rick Curzon (30th January 2016). |
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The Film
 ***This is an A/V and Extras review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** Aaron and Austin Keeling's tauntingly sinister new feature - The House on Pine Street - wreaks havoc on an expectant young couple as they move into an eerily ominous house. This highly acclaimed psychological thriller comes to DVD and digital; thanks to Second Sight. After an unexpected mental breakdown, seven month pregnant Jennifer Branagan (Emily Goss - An Emotional Affair) reluctantly returns to her hometown in Kansas with her husband Luke for the arrival of their baby. Struggling to cope with fears of motherhood, a strained relationship with her husband and the presence of an overbearing mother, Meredith, Jennifer is losing control of her life. But what begins with objects moving behind her back and unexplained knocking sounds, soon escalates into something far more sinister and threatening. Jennifer fears the house is haunted, yet alone in her convictions, she is forced to question her own sanity. Is she losing her mind, or is there a dark entity within the house that is all too real? Fear what you cannot see in The House on Pine Street.
Video
This seems to have been a digitally shot production made on a shoestring budget in a very short space of time. The image quality is actually rather good for standard definition and this is unusually a modern horror production that eschews the desaturated look of many horror flicks made these days; plenty of robust, even occasionally florid colours. Black levels are good with no black crush that I detected and very little by way of noise or grain, although obviously dark sequences are less robust but much of this film is set in daylight. Contrast is reasonably high but that seems to be a stylistic choice, once again going against the grain for modern horror. This is a film that has very little SPFX work in keeping with it's low key "is she nuts or not" plot and it could also be described as an atheist ghost story; there is some modest CGI but not much. Obviously these is no damage being a newly lensed HD production. A shame this hasn't been released on Blu-ray, but thems the breaks here in the UK these days, alas. Presented in the PAL format and R2 / 107'55" / 1.85:1 anamorphic.
Audio
Only one language option on this one and that is English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono. Yes, you read that right: Mono; despite what the package claims. All sounds are firmly through the front two speakers but there seems to be some LFE boost which set the subwoofer off occasionally. Hard to believe that a modern film, and a modern horror film actually has a mono track. I though even Woody Allen had gone stereo recently and he seemed to be the last holdout to stereo or 5.1 goodness. A shame, because this film is an old dark house horror flick and the expanded sound field might have provided greater depth to the shocks. In any case, dialogue is clear and easy to make out in the mix - I never had any trouble in hearing what was being said. This has an effective score by Nathan Matthew Leonard & Jeremy Lamb which is also reasonably low key and non invasive. There are no subtitle options and no extras beyond the embossed, reflective card slipcase which simply reproduces the artwork off the sleeve precisely.
Extras
Nada, nein, none, nyet!
Overall
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