DVD Reviews

The Bleeding

Ever wondered what it would be like if you took The Fast and the Furious and tossed in some vampires? Nope, neither had I but this is pretty much what The Bleeding is complete with Vin Diesel look alike!

U.S. Army Ranger Shawn Black returns home from Afghanistan to find that his parents have been brutally murdered. But when he discovers that his war hero brother has been reborn as the Vampire King known as Kane, he vows revenge on the vampire army that slaughtered his family. Now with the help of a rogue priest with a taste for machine guns and a party girl with a love of muscle cars, Black will battle Kane and his blood-crazed legions on a highway that leads straight to Hell.

Audio is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround. The mix is ok but not quite good. Dialogue is sometimes muddled and often competing with the score and sound FX. Surrounds are used quite a lot but often not in an effective manner. You sometimes get the sense of the motion that’s trying to be created with “try” being the key word. The score is pretty good and entertaining even if it does overpower the dialogue at times. The low end packs a pretty good punch. From gun shots to the rumble of muscle car engines, there is enough bass to make your body move. Subtitles are available in English SDH and Spanish.

The video is presented in a 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio and tries its best to make the film seem like more than your standard low budget flick. Unfortunately the film IS a low budget flick and the video shows it. While the film is an intentionally gritty looking film, it is also unintentionally gritty and grainy due to this transfer. Black levels are a little muddy which combined with the grain severely limits the detail during darker scenes. The film has a varied colour palette with schemes and lighting ranging from cool blues to dry yellows and each is nicely reproduced on this DVD. I’d say the transfer is decent overall with most the problems probably stemming from the original source material.

With regards to supplemental material, the DVD opens with trailers for I Spit on Your Grave (1978), I Spit on Your Grave (2010), Let Me In, and The Walking Dead. “Cast Interviews” is almost 5 minutes of on-set interviews with various cast members. There isn’t a lot of information as the footage seems a little guerilla style where the actors are kinda taken by surprise. “Make-up & Effects” is similar to the previous extra in both length and style. While you do see some of the scenes being shot and some behind-the-scenes application footage, there isn’t much actual explanation about how the FX are done or what is being done to achieve certain things. It’s mostly just 5 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage of them shoot sequences where FX are used. The best portion of this extra was seeing Kat Von D freak about having to deal with squibs as she’s being fitted with them. The final extra is another featurette called “stunts” which again, runs about 5 minutes in length. This is much of the same type of footage as the previous two featurettes. Lots of on set behind-the-scenes stuff, some interview footage and a small amount of explaining what’s actually happening. These are a lack luster bunch of extras even for a low budget direct to DVD release.

I have no problems with Directors, Writers, or Producers etc. also wanting to act in their films as long as they can put forth good product. Sometimes the film is very good as with many Clint Eastwood films. But not everyone should Direct, even if they want to. Just like acting, there are good Directors and bad Directors. With The Bleeding, we have a bunch of people who are fun as actors when it comes to action films. But I’m not sure any of them is quite equipped to carry a film. Here they’re being forced to carry a film rife with poor vision and direction. While you can blame some of it on budget, a good filmmaker knows how to work within the limits before him.  This is not the case with The Bleeding and it shows… a lot. Not even worth a rental.

Review By Robert Harding