Tweet
Released by: Image Entertainment
Released on: January 15, 2013.
Director: Robert Hall
Cast: Bret Harrison, Laura Prepon, Ashley Laurence
Year: 2004
Purchase From Amazon
The Movie:
Robert Hall was a special effects technician for the Angel and Buffy The Vampire Slayer television shows, so it's interesting that the main character in his directorial debut, Lightning Bug, would be an aspiring special effects technician himself. He also wrote and co-produced the film, lending even more weight to its personal slant.
Lightning Bug tells the story of Green Graves (Bret Harrison), a teenager who moved from Detroit to Alabama at a young age with his mother, Jenny (Ashley Laurence of the Hellraiser films). Since they moved they've fallen upon hard times and Jenny has married an abusive alcoholic man named Earl (Kevin Gage). Green is a long time monster movie fan and he spends all of his spare time and all of his spare money working on latex applications and make up effects in his room and watching as many horror movies as he can.
One day, when out to rent a movie, he meets Angevin Duvet (Laura Prepon of That 70s Show) and the two hit it off. They start dating and soon fall fast in love but things are about to get more complicated just as they start looking up for poor Green. His work at the local haunted house, which he hopes will serve as the portfolio work he needs to get a shot at taking on Hollywood, has got him in some hot water with the local religious right, which just so happens to be lead by Angevin's mother (Shannon Eubanks) who may or may not be in complete control of her faculties. To make matters worse, Earl's drinking is getting out of control and he's starting to get physical with Green. While all of this is going on, Green's younger brother, Jay (Lucas Till), is burying himself in the local church not because he's truly seeking salvation but because he doesn't really know what else to do.
When the local church is vandalized, all signs point to Green as the culprit responsible for it and when Angevin's mother gives false testimony to the police (the deputy is played by Hal Sparks) that she saw him do it, Green finds himself in jail. His two friends, Billy Martin (George Faughnan) and Tony Bennett (Jonathon Spencer), help get him out but once they do, he's in for a rough time. His family life is going to fall apart and his relationship with Angevin is going to be pressed to the limit. Green is going to have to make some very important decisions, whether he likes it or not.
Lightning Bug was a mixed bag. The acting is all pretty good (with Harrison, Prepon, Gage and Laurence really standing out) and quite believable, and the direction is tight and professional. The cinematography is also quite good and it does a nice job of capturing the slightly backwards feel of the rural community that the film unfolds in. The premise of the story is a good one and likely one that many of us who felt ostracized by our family members or our peers in our youth can probably relate to easily enough. Green's character is easy to have sympathy for and the obvious autobiographical elements that the film lays on the table make for some compelling drama and interesting twists.
With that in mind, some of the subplots really could have been developed better (without spoiling the ending let's just say that nothing is really resolved with Jay's character despite a fairly heavy build up towards it) and the music didn't help the film. While plenty of people like Bob Dylan-style folk music, but Kevin Kinney's original songs did absolutely nothing for me except to pull me out of the film every time I heard them. Of course, like anything, musical appreciation is completely subjective so this factor may not irritate some as it did me, but I had trouble taking certain parts of the film seriously when the vocals kicked in.
Taking a look at the cover art, it's easy to miscalculate and figure that this film is a horror movie or thriller, and it's definitely not. If you go in with those expectations you'll likely be disappointed as although there are one or two moments of tension, the rest of the film does unfold at a much more languid pace than your typical scary movie does. While Lightning Bug does deal with the darker side of human nature to a certain extent, the emphasis is on how its character will overcome his obstacles, not succumb to them or turn to violence. Not that there's anything wrong with this, there isn't at all, but it would be easy to look at the cover art and assume you're getting something completely different than what you're expecting.
In the end, for a directorial debut, Lightning Bug gets a lot of things right. The flaws are there and they're hard to overlook but Hall knows how to coach good performances out of his actors and he knows how to pace a film and make it look good. Big things could be in store for the director, being that he's only know in his early thirties and this film could very well serve as a stepping stone for him as well as for some of the performers (most of whom are mainly television stars) to make the jump into more feature work.
Note: The Blu-ray release from Image contains both the standard and director's cut versions of the movie. The later runs about fifteen minutes longer and fills in a few gaps here and there, making for a more cohesive experience in terms of storytelling.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Image presents Lightning Bug on Blu-ray framed properly at 1.78.1 in AVC encoded 1080p high definition. This was a movie made on a modest budget but the picture quality is pretty solid here and it feels like an accurate and film like representation of the movie. Grain is intact but there isn't much in the way of print damage to note. Colors look accurate - there are some scenes that seem quite natural and others that have more of an artistic slant to them but in the context of the movie these contrasts work together in interesting ways. Black levels are fine and there are no obvious issues with ringing, heavy filtering or edge enhancement. You might not get the mind melting detail that you get Blu-ray releases of bigger pictures, but these feels right for the film and despite some compression artifacts here and there, fans should be pleased.
The main audio option on the disc is a DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mix but Dolby Digital tracks are provided in 5.1 Surround Sound and 2.0 Stereo - all in English. There are no alternate language options, subtitles or closed captioning options provided. Though this isn't a particularly aggressive sounding movie but depth is present throughout the film, sometimes subtle and sometimes not so subtle. The score sounds good and the dialogue is always easy to understand. There are no problems with hiss or distortion and if this isn't reference quality, it sounds just fine.
There's one extra on the Blu-ray that didn't appear on the previous DVD release and that's a new featurette entitled AfterGlow: A Look Back At Lightning Bug (and yes, it is AfterGlow and not After Glow). Clocking in at just over twenty-four minutes, it's comprised over interviews with Robert Hall, Laura Prepon, Kevin Gage, Ashley Laurence, Darren Lynn Bousman, Fangoria's Pat Jankiewicz, Brett Harrison and more. There's a bunch of behind the scenes footage here and loads of clips from the movie but those interviewed basically talk about how they feel about the movie, what it was like being involved with it and how it's held up.
Luciferin: The Making Of Lightning Bug is a making of documentary that examines the efforts that went into getting the film completed. Most of the key cast and crew members are interviewed in this piece and while some of the material does come off as a little self congratulatory at times, there's still enough worthwhile material in this piece to make it worth checking out. Most of the performers explain their characters, why they liked them, what they thought of their roles (Shannon Eubanks is particularly insightful as to her motivations and the necessity of her role in the movie as well as to the significance of the lightning bugs themselves in the film) and the crew fill in some of the blanks as far as the technical side of things is concerned.
Anchor Bay has also supplied two commentary tracks, the first one is a solo track with director Rob Hall. This is a pretty interesting listen as Hall explains a lot of the back story of the film and how it relates to his own life growing up and the early stages of his effects work. He also delves into some interesting technical aspects about the film as well and has plenty of anecdotes about how it all come together and how he feels about the finished version of his first feature film as a director. The second track again features Hall, though this time he is joined by producer Lisa Waugh, and actresses Ashley Laurence and Laura Prepon. This one is a little more lively and a little more light hearted as the crew discuss certain characters, certain motivations and what they like and don't like about the movie as it plays out for them. There are a lot of good stories and anecdotes about things that went down on the set as well as some interesting bits about casting decisions, how certain roles evolved, and some good preproduction stories from Hall, Prepon and Waugh (all of whom produced in some capacity).
Up next are a handful of deleted scenes with optional commentary from Rob Hall. While none of these scenes are going to blow your mind, they do total almost twenty minutes in length and if you were into the movie, they are worth going through. Hall's commentary explains what they were going for with each scene and why it didn't make the final cut of the film, which makes for an interesting listen if you're curious about the editing process and post production process that a film goes through before it's final version is completed. A few minutes worth of outtakes are also included that are mildly amusing and worth watching once for a laugh.
Rounding out the extra features on this release are a generously sized still gallery, the film's original trailer, and a music video for one of the songs that Kevin Kinney provided for the film.
The Final Word:
Lightning Bug is well acted, well directed, and just generally well made but the story leaves a bit to be desired. Overall it's an interesting coming of age tale with some good characters but not one without its flaws. Image's Blu-ray is a good one, offering an improvement in every way over the DVD in terms of audio and video and carrying over all of the extras from that release and throwing in a new featurette as well.
