Postmortem

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General		Extras
Category	Thriller	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 1
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1997	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	100:45 minutes	Other Extras	Production Notes Cast & Crew Biographies
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie
Region	4	Director	Albert Pyun
Studio Distributor	Magna Pacific	Starring	Charles Sheen Michael Halsey Ivana Milicevic Stephen McCole Gary Lewis
Case	Magna/Carlton
RRP	$29.95	Music	Tony Reparetti

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	?Pan & Scan	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	None	Dolby Digital	2.0
16x9 Enhancement	No	Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 2.0 )
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	?	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	?	Smoking	Yes
Subtitles	None	Annoying Product Placement	No

    Charlie Sheen (credited as Charles Sheen - he must be a big boy now) is James MacGregor, an ex-homicide cop whose life has gone to drink after the publication of his book outlining his search for a serial killer in the US. One day, he receives a fax - an obituary - and the next day the deceased is found in his back yard. James is immediately a suspect, but the faxes and bodies continue to arrive, and it is clear that he isn't the killer.

    The Glasgow police ask him to help with their investigation, and the inexorable chase to the killer begins...

    Something that intrigued me about this movie was the fact that not a single gunshot was fired. Indeed, not a single gun was seen, which makes a welcome change from more typical Hollywood fare.

Video

    The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. It is not 16x9 enhanced. This appears to be a Pan & Scan transfer based on the inappropriately cramped framing of some of the scenes, including some very odd looking artificial pans, but since this movie did not have a theatrical release, I do not know the intended aspect ratio. The end credits are squeezed horizontally, which to me implies that the intended ratio was probably 2.35:1 rather than 1.85:1.

    The transfer was variably sharp. The last 15 minutes were excellent, but the majority of the movie suffered from a considerable lack of clarity. The image was very soft indeed, and lacked definition. Indeed, it looked out of focus for the majority of the movie. Shadow detail was very poor, with some shots simply in almost total blackness. Surprisingly, there was minimal low level noise in the transfer.

    The colours were passably rendered. Generally, they were a little on the muted side, however.

    MPEG artefacts were occasionally noticeable, but were never prominent. Movement artefact was very distracting with this transfer, probably exaggerated by the blow-up from the intended aspect ratio. Film-to-video artefacts were not of great concern, with only some trivial aliasing here and there to complain about - there was insufficient sharpness in the image for there to be much in the way of aliasing! There were occasional artefacts present from the video element used to encode the movie (Digital Betacam), consisting of the typical "tearing" of a small part of the image at times. Film artefacts were rare, except for the odd burst here and there.

Audio

    The overall level of the soundtrack was quite low, but I made no adjustment to my levels.

    Dialogue was acceptable without being great. It tended to be a little soft at times, compared with the music, making some of it a little hard to make out. The Scottish accents didn't help in this regard, either.

    There were no audio sync problems with this disc.

    The music was unremarkable.

    The surround channel had limited usage for music and for the very occasional special effect which seemed to find its way into the rear, either accidentally or by design.

    The .1 channel received a small amount of signal at times from my processor, but was otherwise silent.

What's Missing / What's Extra

Menu

Cast & Crew Biographies

Production Notes

    The video quality is very poor at times, and passable at other times, due in no small part to the Pan & Scan nature of the transfer and to the inferior source material.

    The audio quality is just acceptable.

    The extras present are very limited.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna
19th July 1999