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Released by: Artsploitation Films
Released on: October 6th, 2015.
Director: Ivan Noel
Cast: Ana Maria Giunta, Toto Munoz, Lauro Veron
Year: 2014
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The Movie:
Ivan Noels Children Of The Night isn't subtle, at least not in terms of its title. It's clearly a vampire picture so you know going into the film that will be dealing with some bloodsucking undead characters. Who it deals with those characters, however, is more interesting than the fairly generic title would probably have you assume.
Set in Noel's native Argentina, we meet a journalist who heads into a very rural part of the country where a strange orphanage houses a small group of children. Those that run the place are a bit guarded about things. The 'story' is that these kids all suffer from an unusual skin condition, the kind that keeps them from going outside very and often and that keeps them from heading out during the daylight hours. Of course, what this really means is that they're vampires, all bitten at a young age and doomed to spend the rest of their immortal lives in the bodies of children.
An aging former nurse (Ana María Giunta) runs the place and she has her own reasons for wanting to keep an eye on things - her religious beliefs have her convinced that this is her God-given destiny and for that reason that she can help them. She instills these same beliefs in the 'children,' or at least she tries to, and she also occasionally takes them on trips into the nearby village to feed. Their seemingly calm life becomes endangered when a cult of men from said village figure out what they really are. They then take it upon themselves to remove the problem the children pose. While all of this is going on, our reporter is doing what she can to get her story, interviewing as many of the children as she can and in doing so, starting to figure things out on her own.
Those expecting a gore fest will be let down and those with an aversion to the slow burn style of storytelling might not get what they want out of this but Children Of The Night has an impressive amount of atmosphere. Though shot with a low budget (this is occasionally hard to hide) the movie nevertheless makes great use of some shadowy interior locations and does a fine job of exploiting its Argentinian origins in interesting ways (working in the whole Catholicism/religious angle is a good example of how Noel goes about doing this).
The performances are also quite good. The young actors who play the vampire children are pretty good in their roles but again, Noel keeps things calm, restrained and determined here, so that reigns them in where they could have easily over done it. Giunta as the religious woman in charge of the orphanage is great too. The effects are likewise pretty solid and the story intriguing and interesting. It's slow, languid even, but it's well done.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The AVC encoded 1.78.1 widescreen 1080p high definition picture on this disc is excellent. Detail is strong, colors are reproduced really nicely. The color scheme leans towards a lot of shadowy blacks in spots but this translates into some really slick and atmospheric visuals. Thankfully the black levels are nice and deep throughout the presentation and there aren't any problems with crush or compression. Generally the transfer is very strong in detail and texture. As this was shot digitally, there are no issues at all with dirt, debris or visual detriments of any kind and the disc is well authored, showing no noise reduction or heavy edge enhancement.
The only audio option on the disc is a Spanish language track provided in DTS-HD 2.0 Stereo Master Audio with removable subtitles available in English. The lossless track here is a good one, though there isn't quite as channel separation as you might expect. The score is spread around nicely with some nice pans thrown in for dramatic effect while bass response is consistent tight and strong.
The main extras on the disc is an audio commentary track from Ivan Noel who talks about his inspiration for the film, working with the different cast and crew members, some of the symbolism behind some of the different story elements at play and quite a bit more.
Aside from that we get a quick featurette that takes us behind the scenes of the making of the film, a trailer for the feature, menus and chapter selection.
The Final Word:
Even if, like a lot of us, you're burnt out on vampire movies, Children Of The Night is worth checking out. In a genre that's been played out over and over again it manages to do something different and do it quite well at that. Artsploitation have done right by the film with this Blu-ray release, presenting it in very nice shape and with an interesting commentary as its prime supplement.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
