Announcement
Collapse
No announcement yet.
Observance
Collapse
X
Collapse
-
Observance
Released by: Artsploitation Films
Released on: August 2nd, 2016.
Director: Joseph Sims-Dennett
Cast: Lindsay Farris, Stephanie King, Brendan Cowell, John Jarratt, Benedict Hardie
Year: 2015
Purchase From Amazon
The Movie:
Joseph Sims-Dennett's 2015 picture Observance introduces us to a man named Parker (Lindsay Farris). He was once in business for himself as a private detective but after his son passed away and his marriage fell apart, he's been in a slump. Things get… weird when he's hired to keep tabs on a pretty woman named Tenneal (Stephanie King). To do this he sets himself up in a rundown apartment and proceeds to get all of his gear in order - camera, recording equipment, all the typical P.I. stuff you'd expect him to have.
But Parker never met the guy who hired him to spend a week doing this. He gets the odd phone call with direction but that's it. It's all very mysterious and strange and the more time he spends on this stakeout, the more it seems to take its toll on him. When he falls asleep and wakes up with a lesion on his back and an uncontrollable urge to vomit, it's clear that something has gone horribly wrong here.
Observance leaves a whole lot up to the viewer to decide in terms of its resolution, but that's not necessarily a bad thing given how formulaic a lot of horror pictures can be. Pulling obvious influence from the likes of Polanski and Lynch and throwing in some Hitchcockian Rear Window style voyeuristic tropes, Sims-Dennett has crafted a pretty interesting picture. It's not always pretty, mind you - the apartment where Parker bases his operation is squalid, it looks as if it is rotting from the inside and there's a very putrid vibe to it. This makes what he does feel unseemly right from the start, and of course as things proceed and the plot becomes increasingly more bizarre, that unseemliness ramps up to a pretty strong degree.
The performances are interesting. Lindsay Farris is really solid in the lead. He makes Parker an interesting character. We know he's been through a lot leading up to the events that take place in the movie and we feel for the guy. Without spoiling how things wind up playing out, his character arc is fairly extreme but Farris handles both the physical demands and the dramatic aspects of the part quite well. Our other lead, Stephanie King, also does fine work here. She doesn't have a whole lot of dialogue and much of what we see her do we see from Parker's point of view, but she uses her body language to convey everything that she needs to. As Parker spends more time observing her and in turn, slowly but surely becomes obsessed with her, we do at least understand why this would happen. She's very attractive and her character is intriguing.
The movie is well put together on a technical level. This wasn't made with a massive budget but it doesn't need loads of fancy effects work to tell its story. The squalid apartment set is perfect for Parker's side of the story, it seems to constrict around him at times and its filth in turn seems to infect him. The cinematography enhances this, there are some clever camera setups here. The use of sound in the film is also very effective. This doesn't move at a hundred miles an hour, but if you appreciate ambiguously weird, slow burns then this should work for you. It's quite well done!
Video/Audio/Extras:
The AVC encoded 2.35.1 widescreen 1080p high definition picture on this disc is quite good. Detail is strong and colors are reproduced really well (although this is hardly a colorful film, it's pretty heavy on earth tones and darker colors). Black levels are nice and deep throughout the presentation. Generally the transfer excels in areas of both 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. Outside of some slight shimmer here and there, the movie looks excellent in high definition.
The only audio option on the disc is an English language track provided in DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio with removable subtitles available in English. The lossless 5.1 track here is a good one, with a lot of impressive channel separation throughout the movie. The score is spread around perfectly with some nice pans thrown in for dramatic effect while bass response is consistent tight and strong.
Extras are slim. We get a three minute introduction to the film from Farris and King, trailers for a few other Artsploitation Films properties, menus and chapter selection.
The Final Word:
Observance is a well done, it's a thought provoking picture that rewards attentive viewing (and at the same time is sure to alienate those who want things tied up nicely with a bow) and offers some solid thrills at the same time. Artsploitation's Blu-ray release is short on supplements but it looks and sounds quite good. This is definitely worth checking out, so long as you're down with ambiguity!
Posting comments is disabled.
Categories
Collapse
article_tags
Collapse
- album review (218)
- album reviews (274)
- arrow video (272)
- 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 (2513)
- idw publishing (216)
- image comics (207)
- kino lorber (391)
- movie news (260)
- review (318)
- scream factory (279)
- severin films (300)
- shout! factory (537)
- twilight time (269)
- twilight time releasing (231)
- vinegar syndrome (497)
Latest Articles
Collapse
-
Released by: Kino Lorber
Released on: February 22nd, 2022.
Director: Gianfranco Parolini
Cast: Lee Van Cleef, Jack Palance
Year: 1976
Purchase From Amazon
God’s Gun – Movie Review:
Directed by Gianfranco Parolini in 1976, quite late in the spaghetti western boom years, God's Gun (Diamante Lobo in Italy) introduces us to a bad, bad man named Sam Clayton (Jack Palance) who, along with his gang of equally bad, bad men, start wreaking...-
Channel: Movies
04-17-2024, 12:10 PM -
-
Released by: Kino Lorber
Released on: October 8th, 2019.
Director: Mario Bava
Cast: Christopher Lee, Reg Park, Leonora Ruffo, Gaia Germani
Year: 1968
Purchase From Amazon
Hercules In The Haunted World – Movie Review:
Directed by Mario Bava in 1961 and featuring a screenplay by Bava (and Sandro Continenza, Francesco Prosperi and Duccio Tessari), Hercules In The Haunted World (also known as Hercules At The Center Of The Earth and...-
Channel: Movies
04-17-2024, 12:08 PM -
-
Released by: Cinématographe
Released on: March 26th, 2024.
Director: Jack Nicholson
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Mary Steenburgen, Christopher Lloyd, John Belushi
Year: 1978
Purchase From Amazon
Goin’ South – Movie Review:
Made at the height of his career as an actor, 1978’s ‘Goin’ South’ sees Jack Nicholson once again in the director’s chair, seven years after his directorial debut, ‘Drive, He Said,’ failed to set the...-
Channel: Movies
04-17-2024, 10:29 AM -
-
Released by: Radiance Films
Released on: April 20th, 2024.
Director: Noburo Nakamura
Cast: Miyuki Kuwano, Mikijiro Hira
Year: 1964
Purchase From Amazon
The Shape Of Night – Movie Review:
Directed by Noburo Nakamura for Shochiko in 1964, ‘The Shape Of Night’ follows a young woman named Yoshie Nomoto (Miyuki Kuwano). In the opening scene, she’s working as a streetwalker on the outskirts of town and soon enough, she’s picked...-
Channel: Movies
04-17-2024, 10:26 AM -
-
Released by: Universal Studios
Released on: April 22nd, 2024.
Director: Bryce McGuire
Cast: Wyatt Russell, Kerry Condon, Amélie Hoeferle
Year: 2024
Purchase From Amazon
Night Swim – Movie Review:
The feature length directorial debut of Bryce McGuire, a collaboration between James Wan's Atomic Monster and Blumhouse, 2024’s Night Swim opens with a scene set in 1992 where a young girl looks out her window and sees a toy boat floating...-
Channel: Movies
04-17-2024, 10:24 AM -
-
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 -