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Straw Dogs – 2011 Remake (Blu-ray) by David Susilo
Studio and Year: Screen Gems 2011
MPAA Rating: R Feature running time: 110 minutes Genre: Horror, Thriller Disc Format: BD-50 Encoding: AVC (MPEG-4) Video Aspect: 2.40:1 Resolution: 1080p/24 Audio Format(s): English DTS-HD MA 5.1, French DTS-HD MA 5.1, Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 Subtitles: English, Chinese, French, Korean, Spanish Starring: Laz Alonso, Kate Bosworth, Willa Holland, James Marsden, Dominic Purcell, Alexander Skarsgard, James Woods Directed by: Rod Lurrie Music by: Larry Groupé Written By: Rod Lurie, David Zelag Goodman & Sam Peckinpah (1971 Screenplay) Region Code: A Blu-ray Disc release Date: December 20, 2011 Synopsis (courtesy of imdb.com):
A young couple (James Marsden and Kate Bosworth) moves to a quaint southern town. Soon their perfect getaway turns out to become a living hell when dark secrets and lethal passions spiral out of control. Trapped by a pack of depraved locals led by a ruthless predator (Alexander Skarsgard, TV’s “True Blood”), they face a night of agonizing suffering and endless bloodshed. Now their only hope for survival is to become more savage than their merciless torturers. Also starring two-time Academy Award® Nominee James Woods (Best Actor, Salvador, 1986 and Best Supporting Actor, Ghosts of Mississippi, 1996).
My Take:In the original movie, the main characters’ got lost because for some reason they can’t read their map... which is understandable to some extent. However, in this remake, they can not even follow a GPS direction. From that moment, I already feel that these group of people deserves to be shot. If you can’t take a simple “left” and “right” direction, you don’t have the right to be among the living.
As the movie goes along, the premise continually gets worse. This is supposed to be a horror/thriller genre which. By definition, should be suspenseful. Well, this movie is awkwardly missing one but very important key element: the suspense. I don’t want to talk about the movie anymore. It makes me angry. It’s a waste of time and it’s an insult to the 1971 original Straw Dogs. It’s not bad for people who haven’t watched the original, but once you’ve seen it (and I did), this movie lacks soul, suspense and the feeling of madness of the original. This Blu-ray presentation is filled with solid video transfer with rich colours, however, with natural skin tones and quite acceptable video. Even better, its audio track steals the show... not that there is much to steal from the show itself considering how bad this remake is. The enveloping DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio sound rocked my theatre room with its occasional chest-pounding LFE and atmospheric sound. Equipment used for this review:
Anthem MRX-700 Receiver
Grandviewscreen 96” 21:9 matte-white 1.0-gain screen PSB Century 300i (front and surround speakers) PSB Image C5 (centre speaker) PSB Subseries 300 (subwoofer) Panasonic PT-AE4000U projector Pioneer BDP-LX55 BD player Ultralink Ambiance MKII speaker wires Viewing room is as per THX and SMPTE recommendation with 45-degree Field of View Audio: 9/10
Video: 8/10
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