Mid-Century - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Mid-Century



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
Mid-Century is a weird hodgepodge flick that tries to blend horror with supernatural thriller, and some odd sci-fi tropes in what ends up being a fairly disjointed and frustrating movie. And by frustrating I simply don’t mean that it’s bad. I mean that there are moments of genuine interest and intelligence in the movie, but that is largely swallowed up by the disjointed direction by Sonja O’Hara and the overall feeling of “meh” that pushes the lackluster narrative forward the REST of the time.

We have an opening vignette with a scene that is in the “mid-century” revolving around an “eccentric” architect named Frederick Banner (Stephen Lang) stalking a family in the land development that he designed and created. It’s pretty obvious that Banner is nuttier than a fruitcake as he kills the husband of a woman he’s been lusting after and ends up marrying her. Fast forward to today where we meet Tom Levin (Shane West) and his doctor girlfriend Alice (Chelsea Gilligan) who are in the Banner made subdivision using one of the homes as an Air BnB for the weekend. The two are having a bit of a tiff about commitment, so when Alice goes off to work Tom is left at home with nothing to do.

Soon he starts seeing visions of the dead wife that Banner killed (you know, the one in the opening scene that he married after murdering her husband) who seems to be pointing him along a trail of breadcrumbs to figure out what happened here. Soon tom is falling right down the rabbit hole as he finds out that Banner wasn’t just eccentric, but a cultist obsessed with eternal life, and a psychopathic murderer as well.

I’m not going to give it all away, but needless to say that the narrative is an overwhelmingly complicated and convoluted story that takes so much time trying to piece together, that by the end you simply don’t care. Sure, we already know from the beginning that Banner is going to be the arch villain of the story, but it takes sooooooooooooo long to reveal his presence and the double backing and twists and turns to get that point is so nonsensical that it’s a bit of a let down.

At the same time there are some genuinely cool aspects to the film. The body jumping aspect near the end is a bit overused (but clever), and the idea of souls being conduits was pretty neat too. Unfortunately those are buried under a mount of before mentioned convoluted storytelling. Too bad too, as the story started out as a weird murderous blend of the Twilight Zone and The Stepford Wives, before veering off into the crazy supernatural thriller of the last act. Had it been better written and fleshed out this could have been a neat cult film.




Rating:

Rated R for violent content, some language, drug use and brief nudity




Video:

The video and audio are what I jokingly refer to as “Lionsgate’s rule of 4”.. meaning a solid entry for both without being spectacular. The digitally shot production looks really nice most of the time, although a lot of the time it’s given this veneer of parchment yellowed to give the film an older look. Especially back in the 1950s flashbacks with Banner and Joann. However, detail levels remain strong in the future, and except for some banding in dark interior shots, the disc looks rather nice.









Audio:

The audio fares the same fate. Good mix for the most part, but never stellar. The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track is a bit forward heavy for most of the runtime, with a sort of moody score that adds in some surround sound ambiance to fill out the back channels. There’s some solid low end thump with some of the scares and fright moments, but overall it’s a middle of the road “good” mix












Extras:

• Trailer
• Commentary with Director Sonja O'Hara and Writer-Producer-Actor Mike Stern

Final Score: ​

As I said, Mid-Century genuinely held promise, but it was held back by a convoluted script and some pretty mediocre acting (although Stephen Lang was deliciously hammy as the scenery chomping Banner). The Blu-ray is a solid effort from Lionsgate, with good video and audio, but meager extras and only a single language track. Personally I’d just skip it unless you’re curious enough for a rental.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Shane West, Sarah Hay, Bruce Dern, Stpehn Lang, Vanessa Williams, Annapurna Siriam
Directed by: Sonja O'Hara
Written by: Mike Stern
Aspect Ratio: 2.00:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Studio: Lionsgate
Rated: R
Runtime: 105 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: July 26th, 2022

Recommendation: Skip It

 

[Travis Ballstadt]

I was intrigued. Now I'm less intrigued. Thanks for the review.

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review and I will skip it as well.