On the 3rd Day - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

On the 3rd Day



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
Daniel de la Vega’s latest Argentinian flick takes a dramatic turn into old classic Nosferatu arenas with an old school Catholic vampire style film that is part Telenova, and part old school horror. Having only seen Necrophobia out of his entire filmic line up I can’t exactly compare On the 3rd Day to the rest of his body of work, but I ended up being rather intrigued, but also rather disappointed, in On the 3rd Day. There’s elements of the movie that are really fun and old school, but the fact that Scream Factory’s Blu-ray only includes the INCREDIBLY bad English dub, and the hokey 1950s Nosferatu kind of kills the mood, even if you’re going into it with a bit of a nostalgic vibe.

It’s not very often that I get to review Argentinian films, and I was definitely fascinated by the trailer when I got this press release a month or so ago. The company behind this one is also Del Toro films, who idd the utterly fantastic Funeral Home from the Fantasia lineup, so I was all set for a great vampire film. Well, what we got was a decent enough low budget film, but one that gets hampered by the horrible dub (I REALLY would have loved the original Spanish language track) and some mediocre acting and basic run of the mill story telling with a really twisted ending that actually ALMOST redeemed the film in some ways.

In order to protect their son Martin (Octavio Belmonte) from her abusive ex-husband (Diego Cremonesi), Cecilia (Mariana Anghilera) takes off in the middle of the night in Argentina to find sanctuary somewhere else. There she accidentally gets side swiped by Padre Enrique (Gerardo Romano) who is carrying a mysterious cargo, she ends up waking up in a hospital 3 days later. Waking up Cecilia can’t even remember where she’s been, where Martin is, and even what happened? All she knows is that she stumbled out all bloody and beaten up into a farmhouse and then woke up in the hospital.

However, she does have visions of Martin, and with the help of her doctor Hernan (Lautaro Delgado) escapes from the hospital and tries tracking down her son. That is, if the religious fanaticism of father Enrique doesn’t destroy them before Cecilia is able to find the answers that she so desperately wants (but very well may not like when she finds out).

The film tries to play things close to the vest with the reveal of who is the good guy and who is the bad guy, but veteran horror films will see the twists coming a mile away. The film’s cover alone pretty much spells out the fact that we’re looking for a Nosferatu style vamyre, and Father Enrique is a vampire hunting Padre. Things play out exactly as one would expect, with Cecilia figuring out that she’s not exactly human anymore, and each step closer to Martin reveals another sickening clue into the answer that she both does and does not want answered at the same time.

Everyone does a reasonable low budget job acting, but the film’s nostalgic religious vampire angle is a LITTLE bit dated, but also heavily hampered by the incredibly terrible English dub. I don’t know WHY we didn’t get the Spanish language track from Scream Factory (possible rights issues?) as they usually are very good about keeping the original language track, but it is so incredibly terrible that you would have to put it on par with the old Telenova Spanish soap operas in terms of quality dubbing. It just saps everything out of the film that it has to offer, as you’re visibly cringing at the poor dialog translation, and hammy acting that makes the overly stylized and dramatic acting in the film seem even MORE hokey. The one thing that I will fully admit to loving is the twist ending. You might guess it, but it’s a truly sickening ending twist that put a smile on this horror hound’s face and almost redeemed a lot of the goofiness that came before it.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

Outside of the fact that this is a 2.39:1 framed film, I really couldn’t find much information AT ALL about the cameras used, the resolution of the master, or any other technical merits. Personally I feel it’s a digitally shot film due to the low budget, as well as the high amounts of noise in the dark. The film is very monochromatic with blues and mild ambers used as the coloring of the film. Facial tones and general ambiance is a very bleak and desaturated look, but general details are still quite good. We do have some noise spikes in the darkness, but splashes of color do pop out every now and again as well (such as the red shirt, or the yellow jacket that Cecilia is found in). Its’ a good looking movie, not super great, but definitely pleasing enough from at technical stand point.











Audio:

As I mentioned in the review above, On the Third Day doesn’t come with the original Spanish language track, but comes with a brace of English DTS-HD MA tracks ( a 5.1 mix and a down mixed 2.0 mix for night listening). It’s a solid mix from a technical stand point, with good vocals, solid bass mixed in (the final 20 minutes have some very impressive moments), but the real downer is the English DUBBING on the track. It’s painfully amateurish from what we’ve come to expect from ADR dubs, and ends up dragging the film’s impact down simply due to how cheesy the voice acting was.












Extras:

] • Trailers

Final Score: ​

On the 3rd Day is nothing that special. It’s a modern take on a classic Nosferatu style horror movie, and goes through the paces with predictable results. The horrible dub doesn’t really help the already mediocre film any, but the Blu-ray is quite solid I must admit (minus the minimalist extras). Might be worth checking out as a bored rental, but personally I couldn’t really get into it at all, and this coming from a fanatic of Latin horror movies (and horror movies in general). Skip it or rental, one of the two.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Federico Aimetta, Mariana Anghileri, Octavio Belmonte, Arturo Bonin
Directed by: Daniel de lal Vega
Written by: Alberto Fasce, Gonzalo, Ventury
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DTS-HD MA 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Scream Factory
Rated: R
Runtime: 85 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: March 29th, 2022

Recommendation: Skip It/Rental