DVD Review: Bane

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posted on
04.14.2012

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BUY FROM AMAZON: CLICK HERE!
MSRP $9.95
RATED Not Rated
STDUIO Celebrity Video Distribution
RUNNING TIME 120 Minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES
• Deleted Scenes
• Outtakes
• Trailer

The Pitch

There is nothing good to be said, other than this video had ambition.

The Humans

Director James Eaves Actors Sophia Dawnay, Lisa Devlin, Jonathan Sidgwick

The Nutshell

Four women awake in an underground cell with amnesia. The women soon discover that they are part of a secret experiment with no obvious purpose. They are visited, one by one, by the SURGEON who cuts a four digit number into each woman s skin…the exact time he will return to kill them. Each woman must quickly piece together the dark secret behind the gruesome experiment and somehow survive the Surgeon s nightly visits of pain, torture and grisly murder. Be prepared for a shocking ending that will leave you breathless!

The Lowdown

I was trying to get that last bit of Heinz 57, and put it up in the air.

I began reviewing DVDs for CHUD at the beginning of the year. I tried to grab titles that sounded interesting and always try to get something that expands my catalog. This can sometimes be challenging as I am constantly watching tv shows, movies I find interesting in any way and go to the local Cineplex quite often (We bought our house to get closer to a particular cinema). When we have our chance to pick the dvds for review, I try to get dvds that I hope people will read, whether based on the release date of the DVD, the popularity of the movie or its genre. Bane is the name of my second favorite (when correctly written) Batman villain and there was not a doubt from the DVD cover on amazon that it was horror. This was worth a shot.

The review copy I received had no eggshell, no packaging and only a simple silver DVD with a black imprint of the title on it in a black paper sleeve. I put the DVD in my pc and the looped high gloss video comes to life on the simple 4 button menu, the gross color scheme that reminds me of someone walking through a haunted house with a handycam. What’s even worse is that the camera was as dull as could be. I think shaky cam and steady cam are overused, but how about something other than boring lifeless cam. The sound is horribly unbalanced between dialogue and over-amplified screaming even though the vocals overpower all other noise in a very amateur way. I click play to watch the video to get away from the menu and after the slow prologue/credits play for 5 minutes, a cheap jump scene gets thrown in and I get the worst horror I can think of, it returns me to the main menu. I tried a few different ways to get to chapter 2 (I now wish it would have never worked) and I finally clicked on the chapters button and then chapter 2’s title. I can look past the cheap packaging, I can forgive the lame special features, I can even give the crew the fact the menu matches the final prodcut, but to not even check the DVD authoring to make sure the movie plays is completely unforgivable. I have enough pride that if something represents my feelings that I double check it to try to catch what I’ve typed or spelled wrong. Why weren’t the folks in charge of Bane as conscientious?

Watching that clock with this guy would have been a better experience.

It was already so bad it had to get better, right? Wrong. This never ending two hour tale was reminiscent of watching a security camera someone forgot to turn off inside an empty H&R Block after tax season is over. They had a really cool effect of focusing on a clock to identify the passing of time that by the 75th time that you saw the same clock it had run its course, a room that any bad guy could teleport into yet we are to believe this is the not so distant future, a girl that can see the future but only can yell and sit back to watch what she saw happen and a creature that resembles what it would look like if we fused a fly, a human and an autoparts store together.

The acting is atrocious. Over acted at every chance in every scene by every actor. Even by the actors who didn’t talk. Acting this bad just lays more blame on the creative team behind filming, directing and editing.

Everything in this video is bad. I feel I need to say something about the plot, but I don’t even know where to begin. The film takes so long to focus on our protagonist that until the others are dead you don’t know who is just crazy or who you are supposed to root for. Something or someone (depending on reality or dream state) brands the girls with their death time, and the branding sprays 15 gallons of fake blood, and then someone comes in and kills the girl at that time, but until two die that way the killer is not seen. Somehow we get to the point where the girls were the last hope for mankind because some fly creatures have invaded and they kill everything including the slasher doctor who then has no reason to exist. I’m lost reading what I just wrote and I watched the video.

This viewer agreed with me.

The Package

I seriously hope you didn’t make it this far in the review and expect something good here. There is a deleted scene, a trailer and outtakes. I have seen listed on a few retailers that there was supposed to be a making of, but it did not exist on the review copy I had.

Rating:
★☆☆☆☆

Out of a Possible 5 Stars



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