Morgue - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Morgue



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras: :
Final Score:


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Movie
I have a bad habit of “guessing” the ending before it happens in movies, and many times my overly critical mind can put the clues together after having watched a BAZILLION movies over the course of my life. However there are some movies that you can’t help but put the pieces together because the film makers dangle said pieces right in front of your eyes the whole time. Films like The Sixth Sense were infamous for people claiming to have guessed the ending WAY ahead of time, but Morgue takes the case for dangling the obvious carrot in front of the audience, and not even bothering to TRY and hide it. The movie plays with the old fashioned “is he dead?” motif and just rehashes some tired old tropes for 81 minutes, and finishes with a “twist” shocker that no one who watches the movie will be shocked at.

The film opens with our main star Diego Martinez (Pablo Martinez) having a conversation with his girlfriend via phone while driving, only for Diego to hit and kill someone with his car when he’s not looking. Scared and not sure what to do, Diego just runs from the scene of the crime and tries to play it off. However, he’s not going to live it off considering that he’s the security guard for a local hospital and has to guard the morgue for the night (oh, we can’t see where this is going). Naturally the dead man is located on the admission table for the morgue (we’re shown who it is pretty quickly), but poor Diego is just trying to forget about his traumatic accident.

Soon things start happening in the hospital, with little flickers seen out of the corner of an eye, that clue the security guard into the fact that something or someone else is prowling the halls. No matter how hard he tries to figure out what’s going on, Diego can’t seem to actually get any PROOF that something is messing with him. But as the night progresses his worst nightmares become reality and soon the poor guy is about to fall victim to the very thing that he is trying suppress.

I’d feel bad about spoiling the “twist” of the movie if it were not so hilariously obvious what the “twist” is from the first 5 minutes of the movie. The second we see that Diego kills a person and is going to be working alone at a city hospital MORGUE, everyone with half a firing synapse up in their gray matter knows EXACTLY what is going to happen next. And what happens next is about as cliched and well worn a trope as ever could be seen too. Sure, there’s a few genuinely creepy moments in the film, and those who are scared of death might get a few jump scares. But EVERYONE can see where the ghost is going, and knows exactly who it is before the 15 minute point in the movie is achieved. If director Hugo Cardozo had maybe left the reveal of who was on the operating table till later, or possibly tried to hide the twist a LITTLE better, then it might be a half star or so better of a film. But at the end of the day this was sadly a very very VERY forgettable movie that wasn’t so much BAD, as it was boring and rote.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

I looked around at the usual places and except for Wikipedia (and we all know how accurate Wiki’s can be) stating that it was shot in Paraguay for a grand total of two weeks, I can find next to ZERO information on the cameras used. It’s obviously digital cameras of some sort, but some fairly low budget ones as we get a heavily degraded film source (probably intentionally so in some parts due to the blue color grading and heavy noise) that is very noisy and “grungy” looking, ala found footage films. Clarity can be rather revealing at times, but much of the film is in the middle of a dimly lit hospital morgue where very little can actually be made out. It’s a decent enough looking transfer, but one that is meant to be grungy and probably suffers from lack of budget as well.






Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track (that is in both Spanish and Paraguan spoken language) is solid for a horror mix. It’s atmospheric, has some great dialog (when said dialog doesn’t get lost in the echoes of the morgue), and even has some decent bass jumps. Much like the film itself, the audio track does traverse the road very MUCH well traveled, just without ever standing out or making itself super awesome. Surrounds get some hefty workout with the creaks and groans of the old hospital morgue, and dialog is generally very well placed up front (though sometimes voices can sound echoey and the overdub can be a bit obvious). Solid mix, easily the best part of this whole Blu-ray.






Extras:

• Trailer
• Well Go USA Previews

Final Score: ​

As I said in the film’s summary, Morgue is not one of those truly awful modern horror movies. Cardozo tries very hard at being clever, and he’s got some unique visual effects for the (very) low budget Latin American flick. Pablo Martinez gives it his best shot as well, but the dodgy dialog with very over done horror tropes makes this film a non starter from the beginning. Sad but true, the low budget visuals don’t even give us some digital eye candy. Needless to say, I’d put this one as a solid “skip it” in my recommendation tiers.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Francisco Ayala, Maria del Mar Fernandez, Abel Martinez, Pablo Martinez, Raul Rotela
Directed by: Hugo Cardozo
Written by: Hugo Cardozo
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English
Studio: Well Go USA
Rated: NR
Runtime: 81 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: May 11th 2021

Recommendation: Skip It.