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Seance
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - United Kingdom - Acorn Media Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (5th February 2022). |
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The Film
 The semester is almost over at the prestigious Edelvine Academy when the "mean girls" troupe ringleader Alice (After's Inanna Sarkis), Bethany (The Clovehitch Killer's Madisen Beaty), Yvonne (Nobody's Stephanie Sy), Rosalind (Tales from the Hood 3's Djouliet Amara), and Lenora (First Person Shooter's Jade Michael) play a prank on new member Kerrie (Megan Best) involving the "Bloody Mary" ritual to conjure the Edelvine Ghost (ostensibly a student who slashed her wrists in the bath years before). It's all a laugh when Kerrie runs off until they hear a scream and discover her body in the snow beneath her open window. Next semester, her space is literally filled by Camille Meadows (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' Suki Waterhouse), a straight A student who assures head mistress Mrs. Landry (Cult of Chucky's Marina Stephenson Kerr) that she will have no trouble catching up with the curriculum. She learns from loner Helina (Into the Badlands' Ella-Rae Smith) that the previous occupant of her room allegedly committed suicide, but she gets friction when she takes Kerrie's seat the clique's table at dinner leading to a dust up with Alice. Not looking to known as a snitch, Camille refuses to tell Mrs. Landry who started the altercation so she punishes all of them by assigning them to spend their free periods digitally-scanning the back issues of the school's journal. Alice convinces the group including outsiders Camille and Helina to conduct a s้ance to contact Kerrie's ghost. Although they are planning to frighten the two girls with Noh masks, even the others are disgusted with Alice when they apparently make contact with Kerrie who tells them that someone or something is going to kill them. When Lenora vanishes after stealing away from the school to meet a mysterious dating app hookup, the others find Mrs. Landry's story that Lenora left suddenly and get the help of son/the school's handyman Travis (Books of Blood's Seamus Patterson) to get into her room where they discover a symbol scrawled in blood on her bed. Mrs. Landry, on the other hand, accuses them of playing a prank and is loathe to contact the police about it until Camille discovers Rosalind's body in the shower, the victim of an apparent slip and fall. When the girls next try to a s้ance again to contact Rosalind, the makeshift planchette points the finger at Camille; but is she the killer or the next victim? Although Seance (no accent) is the feature directorial debut of Simon Barrett, he is already quite the seasoned vet in the horror genre with screenplays for the underrated Dead Birds (not to be confused with the famous ethnographic film), the successful You're Next, the surprising The Guest, the "meh" Temple, and the execrable Blair Witch, as well as directing segments of V/H/S/2 in which he also flashed his tackle for the wraparound and V/H/S/94. The results are not so much Suspiria-lite as a slightly gorier variant of the Young Adult girls school horrors like The Moth Diaries and Down a Dark Hall. In spite of the supernatural overtones, the killings are obviously the work of a corporeal assailant, and their identity feels just as random as it does obvious in the unmasking climax thanks to rather lax characterization overall in spite of a generally high standard of performance from a group of relative unknowns (outside of Canadian television, that is). The results are not "bad" bad, they just feel like they should be better.
Video
Digitally-lensed with the Arri Alexa Mini, the 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.39:1 widescreen Blu-ray image presumably slightly cropped given the 2x squeeze of the P+S Technik Evolution Anamorphic lenses is very retro in the way it deliberately emphasizes the anamorphic distortion of sixties and seventies scope films that bows the mid-ground during panning shots and elongates the figures of people standing on the edges of the frame (as evinced in many group shots). Fine detail is evident in close-ups and fibers of clothing, hair, and some rare prosthetic effects and the grade is relatively modern but does up the saturation selectively in some shots. The region free disc - misabled as "Region 2 PAL" - appears to be identical to the Region A RLJ disc.
Audio
The sole audio track is an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 option. It's not as constantly active as your higher budget theatrical horrors but it does make good use of intimate silences, unnerving background noises, low scoring, and jumps. Optional English SDH, French, and Spanish subtitles are provided (further evidence that the disc image was authored for North American territories).
Extras
Extras start off with an audio commentary by writer/director Simon Barrett who not only namechecks Suspiria but also, surprisingly, The House That Screamed sadly, the film is never so perverse and less surprisingly his adolescent love of "Nancy Drew" and "The Babysitter's Club" mysteries. He also discusses the desire to shoot in Canada only to discover that none of the gothic campuses would let him shoot a horror film and he had to combine multiple locations and a few sets the same dorm room set was used for each of the characters the bonding of the female cast, and the difficulties of shooting in winter (including a death scene that had to be reworked because the blood kept freezing). The disc also includes six deleted scenes (0:43, 1:22, 0:53, 0:52, 0:23, and 0:40 respectively), each with optional audio commentary by writer/director Simon Barrett, that includes the one death that had to be reworked due to the cold, the only other male character in the film whose one scene was entirely deleted from the finished film, and some brief extensions. The behind the scenes (18:08) segment includes comments from Barrett and the cast about bonding on set, shooting the kills, and choreographing the fight scenes. More interesting than the outtakes (1:52) is the comical decapitation pre-viz (0:20). Also included is a photo gallery and startup trailers of other Shudder titles.
Overall
From the screenwriter of You're Next and The Guest, Seance is not "bad" bad; it just feels like it should be better.
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