The Tank - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

The Tank



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:



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Movie
Monster movies are a dime a dozen in the horror universe, and quite frankly, a heavy staple of the genre for many a year. Everything from Alien to The Fly, all the way down to DTV schlock fests, they’ve all had a place in the grand scheme of things, and probably will till the end of time. Things that go bump in the night is a constant source of fear for humans, and movies love to prey on that particular phobia. Well Go USA’s non Asian films have always been hit or miss, but their horror movies generally tend to hit more often than miss. Some of them may be super low budget, but I’m usually fascinated by what they bring to the table. Sadly this is not the case with The Tank, a low budget creature feature that paints everything by the numbers so well, that it becomes slightly boring with all of the cliches dumped on screen.

Looking nothing like the Oregon coast (I was raised there), New Zealand horror film The Tank introduces us to Ben (Matt Whelan) and Jules (Luciane Buchanan, who I just saw on Netflix’s The Night Watch, so I kept racking my memory trying to figure out where I’d seen her before) are struggling to make ends meet with their pet store venture, when Ben gets notification of his mother’s estate. It seems that she had a bit of property in her name that was undisclosed upon her passing a few months back. A property up in the Eastern Oregon coast line that very well could be sold to get them back in the black once again. Heading up there with their daughter Reia (Zara Nausbaum), the couple finds the dilapidated shack that was their childhood home and begin to settle down and figure out what to do.

After Ben goes down into the water tank to turn on the fresh well water, they both start hearing noises at night. First it’s just little rumbles and scratches, but soon enough Jules sees a creature staring in at them from the outside. But as time goes on the couple soon finds themselves under attack by an ancient creature that was the very reason that Ben’s mother never told them about the old place.

The Tank is not an offensive or bad movie by any means. In fact, it’s got a ton of classic horror tropes in to a decently directed picture. The problems stem from the fact that this is about as rote and bland as can possibly be, committing the most egregious of horror sins. Being completely forgettable. As alluded by my grating description of the film, things go exactly as you would expect from a paint by the numbers script. A couple (with a cute daughter, there has to be a cute kid involved in a monster movie) comes to a dilapidated house, finds out it’s got a deep dark secret, and soon enough they’re under attack. Insert a few cool scenes with a monster (which is done through practical effects for the most part, which is very much appreciated), and everyone escapes with your standard lacerations and wounds as they gasp off into the sunset.

I had a hard time remembering much of the film after I watched it even, showing just has bland The Tank really is. As I said above, it’s not horribly done. It’s not insulting with the dialog. There just isn’t a whole lot of tension, and by the time the 1 hour and 40 minutes were up, I just said “meh, that was OK” and promptly went on to the next film. It is what it is.







Rating:

Rated R for some violence/bloody images and brief language




Video:

The video encode for The Tank is your typical Well Go USA encode. It falls into the low teens at times in the bitrate, and spikes into the mid to low 30s for some of the most complex scenes, giving it a decent enough amount of room to breathe. I noticed heavy sepia tones, with that hazy sort of “DTV teal and brown” that likes to come about with these flicks. Banding comes and goes, but otherwise the dark scenes are decently revealing, along with more than capable clothing and background shot reveals. Facial tones can be a bit sallow due to the teal and sepia grading going on, but overall this is not a bad encode at all.









Audio:

Probably the best part of the entire Blu-ray package has to be the 5.1 DTS-HD MA audio track. A killer (excuse the pun) audio mix is paramount for a horror movie, and Well Go USA delivers the goods with a really immersive track that really shines when the film is out in the woods or in the claustrophobic tank. There’s a lot of dialog heavy bits, but you get to hear the wind whipping in the New Zealand...err...Oregan Coast line, as well as the pings and dripping when down in the old tank. Dialog is rendered cleanly and clearly, and the bass when the monster attacks is quite impressive.












Extras:

• A Look into The Tank - Featurette
• Making the Creature - Featurette
• Original trailer
• Well Go USA Previews

Final Score: ​

The Tank is a bland and boring affair, with just enough things done right to keep you from lampooning it, and not enough thing done right to be fun. There’s some neat practical effects with the monster attacking in the 3rd act, but other than that there’s not a whole lot to say about the film besides that it might be worth a rental if you’re really bored on a saturday night, and your friends have ditched you once again. The Blu-ray looks good, sounds great, and there is ACTUALLY a couple of extras on the disc for once. Still, rental or skipping it is going to be my recommendation


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Luciane Buchanan, Mark Mitchinson, Matt Whelan
Directed by: Scott Walker
Written by: Scott Walker
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DD 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Well Go USA
Rated: R
Runtime:100 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: June 27th, 2023

Recommendation: Skip It