Announcement
Collapse
No announcement yet.
Mr. Jones
Collapse
X
Collapse
-
Mr. Jones
Mr. Jones
Released by: Anchor Bay Entertainment
Released on: May 6th, 2014.
Director: Karl Mueller
Cast: Jon Foster, Sarah Jones, David Clennon, Diane Neal
Year: 2014
Purchase From Amazon
The Movie:
Directed by Karl Muller, Mr. Jones is a 'fond footage' style horror picture with a PG-13 rating that went straight to video. Normally this would spell S-U-C-K loud and clear to anyone who has graduated into adulthood and for the first half an hour or so, admittedly, it was a fight not to hit the stop button on the remote. If you've got the patience to get through a pretty rough opening half hour, however, this one does manage to shift gears and deliver what is ultimately no classic, but at least a moderately entertaining story.
The story follows a couple named Scott (Jon Foster) and Penny (Sarah Jones) who have just left behind their big city home to head out into the sticks for two reasons: to boost the romance factor that has been lacking in their relationship as of late, and to work on a documentary movie. Things start off okay, but for the next half hour they basically just bicker a lot. They can't quite get a handle on how they want to make their movie and this is having an understandable effect on the spark they're trying to light. All of this is fairly dull and uninteresting to watch, though credit to both Foster and Jones for crafting believable characters.
Things take a turn for the better (at least as far as the entertainment factor goes) when they find a rundown old house that they ascertain to belong to the titular Mr. Jones, a famous though very reclusive sculpture artist famous for making creepy metal scarecrow things whose work would be the talk of the town if Scott and Penny were actually in a town and not out in the middle of nowhere. Jones has been missing in action for decades and finding him would seem to be a boon - here's the catch they need to make something of their movie! Scott sets about trying to make the movie and sends Penny back to the city where she tries to interview those who purchased his work way back when… only to learn that there's more to what Jones did than the simple bending of steal… something far more evil and, eventually, moderately eerie.
Once we actually get to the character of Mr. Jones, things pick up considerably here and while Mueller's picture falls prey to the same trappings that plague a lot of other found footage movies (WHY ARE YOU CARRYING AROUND A CAMERA RIGHT NOW YOU IDIOT????) the format does prove effective in the later part of the picture. We get to know Scott and Penny well enough that, even if we don't love them, they seem real enough so that when the bad things inevitably start to happen to them we care about the results. This makes the big finish, when they head towards that old house, all the more effective. Here Mueller is smart enough to let the interesting location speak for itself while excellent use of sound helps to heighten the tension considerably. It takes too long to get to this point, mind you, but at least there's some decent pay off once we do. Had there been better editing, more attention paid to when and how the 'found footage' angle was used to improve plausibility and tighter story flow, this would have turned out better than it did, but as it stands once you suffer through the first part it's worth checking out.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Mr. Jones arrives on Blu-ray framed at 1.78.1 widescreen in AVC encoded 1080p high definition. Given that this is a 'found footage' movie you have to understand that to a certain extent the movie has intentionally been made to look like it has all been captured with consumer grade video on the fly. On that level, the transfer is fine. If you don't mind the shaky-cam thing, this is a pretty strong image. Detail is good when the camera isn't moving too quickly and colors are reproduced quite nicely. Black levels are good and there are no issues with any obvious compression artifacts or edge enhancement to note.
The only audio option on the disc is a strong English language Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track there are subtitles provided in English SDH and Spanish. To be brief, the tack on this disc is a good one. There's a good amount of surround activity throughout the movie and some of the more intense scenes really benefit from this. Dialogue stays clear throughout all of this and the mix is properly balanced, though again there are a few scenes where the audio is intentionally a bit scratchy, in keeping with the found footage aspect of the production. Bass response is pretty solid here too. This gets the job done nicely.
Outside of menus and chapter selection there are no extras features on this disc.
The Final Word:
Mr. Jones takes its sweet-ass time to get going and even then, once it does pick up, it leaves minds decidedly unblown. It does, however, manage to conjure up a bit of atmosphere and successfully execute a few decent ideas. Nobody is reinventing the horror movie wheel here and the found footage angle will put plenty of people burnt out on that gimmick completely off, but this was entertaining enough. Anchor Bay's Blu-ray is devoid of any extras but it looks and sounds decent. Faint praise, sure, but you could do a lot worse than this.
Posting comments is disabled.
Categories
Collapse
article_tags
Collapse
- album review (218)
- album reviews (274)
- arrow video (271)
- blu-ray (3225)
- blu-ray review (4162)
- comic books (1392)
- comic reviews (872)
- comics (988)
- dark horse comics (484)
- dvd and blu-ray reviews a-f (1969)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews G-M (1711)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews N-S (1757)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews T-Z (878)
- dvd review (2512)
- idw publishing (216)
- image comics (207)
- kino lorber (391)
- movie news (260)
- review (318)
- scream factory (279)
- severin films (298)
- shout! factory (537)
- twilight time (269)
- twilight time releasing (231)
- vinegar syndrome (497)
Latest Articles
Collapse
-
Released by: Film Masters
Released on: April 23rd, 2024.
Director: Bert I. Gordon
Cast: Richard Carlson, Juli Reding, Lugene Sanders, Susan Gordon
Year: 1963
Purchase From Amazon
Tormented – Movie Review:
The late Bert I. Gordon’s 1963 horror film, ‘Tormented,’ is an effectively spooky ghost story made with an obviously low budget but no less effective for it.
The story revolves around a professional piano player...-
Channel: Movies
04-17-2024, 10:19 AM -
-
Released by: Grindhouse Releasing
Released on: March 12th, 2024.
Director: William Grefé
Cast: William Shatner, Jennifer Bishop, Ruth Roman, Harold Sakata
Year: 1974
Purchase From Amazon
Impulse – Movie Review:
Directed by the one and only William Grefé, 1974’s Impulse is one of those rare films that allows you to witness what it would be like if a really sweaty William Shatner got mad at a lady carrying balloons. Before that...-
Channel: Movies
04-15-2024, 01:20 PM -
-
Released by: Severin Films
Released on: April 30th, 2024.
Director: Andrew Legge
Cast: Emma Appleton, Stefanie Martini, Rory Fleck Byrne
Year: 2022
Purchase From Amazon
Lola – Movie Review:
Irish filmmakers Andrew Legge’s 2022 movie, ‘Lola’, which was made during Covid-19 lockdowns, is a wildly creative movie made in the found footage style that defies expectations, provides plenty of food for thought and manages to make...-
Channel: Movies
04-10-2024, 04:09 PM -
-
Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
Released on: March 26th, 2024.
Director: Jess Franco, Jorge Grau, Pedro L. Ramírez
Cast: Alberto Dalbés, Evelyne Scott, Fernando Rey, Marisa Mell, Wal Davis, Norma Kastel
Year: 1974
Purchase From Amazon
Spanish Blood Bath – Movie Review:
Vinegar Syndrome brings a triple feature of Spanish horror films of the in this new three-disc Blu-ray boxed set. Here’s what lies inside…
Night Of The...-
Channel: Movies
04-10-2024, 04:02 PM -
-
Released by: Universal Studios
Released on: April 9th, 2024.
Director: Zelda Williams
Cast: Kathryn Newton, Cole Sprouse, Carla Gugino, Joe Chrest, Henry Eikenberry
Year: 2024
Purchase From Amazon
Lisa Frankenstein – Movie Review:
The feature-length directorial debut of Zelda Williams, 20214’s Lisa Frankenstein takes place in 1989 and follows a teenaged girl named Lisa Swallows (Kathryn Newton) who, two years ago, lost her mother...-
Channel: Movies
04-03-2024, 03:40 PM -
-
Released by: Severin Films
Released on: April 30th, 2024.
Director: Gianfranco Giagni
Cast: Roland Wybenga, William Berger, Stéphane Audran
Year: 1988
Purchase From Amazon
Spider Labyrinth – Movie Review:
Professor Alan Whitmore (Roland Wybenga) is an American who works as a Professor of languages studies and has a fascination bordering on obsession with translating pre-Christian religious texts. He was also locked in a closet...-
Channel: Movies
04-03-2024, 03:37 PM -