Dark Tourist (2012)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama/Thriller	Theatrical Trailer Trailer-x 6 for other films
Rating
Year Of Production	2012
Running Time	77:05 (Case: 81)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Suri Krishnamma
Studio Distributor	Gryphon Entertainment	Starring	Michael Cudlitz Melanie Griffith Pruitt Taylor Vance
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	?	Music	Austin Wintory

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

"dark tourist (noun):
one who travels with the intent to view scenes of a tragedy or disaster"

     Jim Tahna (Michael Cudlitz) has worked as a security guard on the night shift for fifteen years. He is obsessive about cleanliness and order, lives alone and keeps to himself. Once a year he takes a vacation and travels to an area where a serial killer had operated, visiting places in the killer’s background and where the crimes were committed.

     Jim’s destination this year is the small town of Hetacomb, California, where a murderer and arsonist named Carl Marznap had lived and committed his crimes, including murdering his parents and burning down a church with the congregation trapped inside. Jim books into a quiet, out of the way, run down motel but is distressed when he discovers that a prostitute operates from the room next door. He goes to visit places in Marznap’s life and starts to get friendly with Betsy (Melanie Griffith), a waitress in the local diner whose husband had died four years previously. But it is clear that Jim has sexual and religious scars, and when he starts to see and converse with Marznap (Pruitt Taylor Vance) his demons arise and the film heads towards a murderous climax.

     Dark Tourist (aka The Grief Tourist) is a chilling and eerie film, helped by a strong performance by Michael Cudlitz. Cudlitz, mostly an actor on TV, most recently seen in the 2014 – 2015 seasons of The Walking Dead, is never off screen. Everything in Dark Tourist is taken from his perspective and he provides the voiceover narration so that while there are hints of psychological damage, Cudlitz plays Jim (or Carl as he starts to call himself) quietly with minimal movements and mannerisms. Yet, we never really learn enough about him to justify the last third of the film. Melanie Griffith as the waitress Betsy is less successful. Griffith has been around for a while, having been nominated for an Oscar for Working Girl (1989), but she has worked more recently on TV; her role here seems underwritten and the relationship with Cudlitz just feels wrong.

     The director of Dark Tourist is Suri Krishnamma, whose credits also heavily favour TV. Despite some interesting ideas, a short running time and an excellent performance by Michael Cudlitz, Dark Tourist does not quite hang together and indeed has more of a low budget TV film feel.

Video

     Dark Tourist is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, close to the original ratio, and is 16x9 enhanced.

     The print is quite sharp, with good blacks and shadow detail. The colour palate is mainly a dull brown, and colours have that digital glossy look that gives a yellow tint under lights and an unnatural look to skin tones. However, brightness and contrast is consistent and I did not notice any marks or artefacts except for occasional minor ghosting with movement.

     The layer change at 46:38 resulted in a slight pause in the middle of a scene.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     Audio is a choice of two English tracks; Dolby Digital 5.1 at 448 Kbps or Dolby Digital 2.0 at 192 Kbps. I listened to the 5.1.

     The dialogue, especially from Michael Cudlitz, was mumbled and difficult to hear, although some sentences from Melanie Griffith were not much clearer. The surrounds were not overused in what is a film of mostly dialogue, but weather effects and music did occur. The most prominent use of the rears, and indeed the subwoofer, were tonal effects intended to represent Jim’s damaged psyche.

     The music score by Austin Wintory was often quite eerie, providing rather obvious clues.

     Lip synchronisation is fine.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Trailer (1:55)

     The film’s trailer.

More from Monster Pictures

     On start-up there were trailers for Gun Woman (1:59), Chocolate Strawberry Vanilla (1:20) and Raven’s Cabin (1:55). These trailers can also be selected from the menu plus trailers for Devil’s Tower (1:46), Antisocial (1:34) and Thanatomorphose (1:25).

     The Region 2 UK version of Dark Tourist is identical to our All Region release, including the same trailers. There are also Region 2 German and Region 1 US versions which look to be the same as ours.

     Despite its short running time (77 minutes) and an excellent performance by Michael Cudlitz, Dark Tourist does not quite hang together due to the limited information about the protagonist and an unconvincing Melanie Griffith. Yet it is a chilling and eerie film that is worth a watch for those interested in the genre.

     The DVD has acceptable video and audio. The extras are trailers, but at least we do get this film’s trailer.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall