The Glow (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	None
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	84:49
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Craig R. Baxley
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Portia de Rossi Dean Cain Hal Linden Dina Merril Joseph Campanella Jonas Chernick Sabrina Grdevich NelsOn Tynes Grace Zabriskie
Case	?
RPI	Rental	Music	Gary Chang

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

    The Glow is a made-for-television movie starring Portia de Rossi (Ally McBeal) and Dean Cain (Lois and Clark). The basic premise of the movie is not new, and the influences of Rosemary's Baby and to an extent Cocoon can be seen within the opening minutes. This does not make it a bad movie however, just a little familiar in the plot department.

    Jackie (de Rossi) is happily married to Matt (Cain) who is struggling to build his own graphic design business. The film opens with Matt being mugged during a wintry run through Central Park. Rushing to his aid come three pensioners, all of whom seem remarkably fit and healthy for their age.

    Matt is taken under the wing of the sprightly septuagenarians and soon they convince he and Jackie to move into a vacant apartment in the beautiful building they own. The oldies seem exceptionally friendly, and almost obsessed with health and fitness. Before too long Matt is forgoing meat and erections in favour of jogging, vitamin tablets and mineral water. Jackie starts to find the attitude of the benevolent neighbours somewhat overpowering and has an uneasy feeling about their interest in her health and fitness.

    Things begin to take a more sinister turn as Kim and David Bennett (the young couple upstairs) vanish overnight - ostensibly moving to the Caribbean. Jackie slowly begins to piece together a disturbing trend - all of the young couples who have rented an apartment, just like themselves, have no living relatives. She is contacted by a woman who is seeking her long lost brother - one David Bennett. The woman inexplicably "falls" to her death from a fourteenth floor window immediately after her meeting with Jackie. When Jackie's personal assistant also meets an untimely end, the victim of a hit-and-run accident, Jackie realises that her suspicions about the elderly owners of her apartment may be more than just paranoia.

    Why do the pensioners crave these young tenants, all of whom appear to have no living relatives? Why do they all seem so obsessed with personal fitness? Why do they all consume a strange pink drink "that takes some getting used to"? Why is Matt spending time with the mysterious young female jogger Alison? Will we actually get to find out what "The Glow" is?

    This is a very lightweight movie. The plot line is telegraphed fairly early on and there is little real suspense generated. The performances of (a constantly flushed) Dean Cain and Portia de Rossi are acceptable, but the bitter and aggressive pensioner character of Sylvia Goodstein is hammily portrayed by Grace Zabriskie, who looks like the victim of either a very poor face-lift or a very recent shock throughout. Hal Linden as Arnold, the "ringleader" of the pensioners, steals every scene in which he appears. The plot has several holes and at the end of the movie there are still one or two significant questions left unanswered. Overall - a weekly rental at best.

Video

    The overall video transfer of this disc is rather good, with no major defects present.

    The film is presented 16x9 enhanced at 1.78:1.

    The transfer is a clean little number, with a generally high degree of sharpness and well rendered colours throughout. There are occasions where the depth of field seems a little shallow and the sharpness drops out just a little, but these are fairly few and far between. The image does suffer from some minor graininess during outdoor shots against a bright background (for example the rooftop jogging scenes around 31:00). Black levels are solid with no low-level noise, and shadow detail is also good; this is a blessing as many of the scenes are shot in subtly lit conditions.

    There are no significant MPEG artefacts on display. There is no noticeable telecine wobble. Edge enhancement is all but absent despite the generally sharp transfer and aliasing was not noted as an issue.

    Film artefacts are insignificant and very rare.

    There is a single English for the Hearing Impaired subtitle track present. The captions are helpful and the subtitles well timed, following the dialogue closely, with only very minor edits for the sake of brevity.

    This is a single sided, single layered (DVD 5) disc.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The overall audio quality of this disc is without technical flaw but is rather bland - certainly not a disc to demonstrate the spiffy new speakers you have just purchased.

    There is a single English audio track available for the main feature which is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround encoded at a healthy 448 kbps.

    Dialogue was always clear and audio synch did not cause any problems - the sole lapse can be seen in the vertical panning shot at 83:45.

    The original music is credited to Gary Chang and is unremarkable. It does what it needs to do in providing some subtle ambience, no more and no less.

    The soundstage is fairly frontal. The front speakers provide some reasonable separation. The surround speakers meanwhile are subtly used to provide ambient sound and to help carry the musical score. Directional effects and front to rear panning are not noticeable.

    The subwoofer was lightly and very sporadically used with no significant LFE effects. It mainly serves to carry the bass notes from the musical score and the very occasional Foley thump.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    There are no extras on the disc.

Menu

    The menu is a silent, static image of Portia de Rossi and allows the choice of language and subtitles or one of fifteen chapter stops.

    This movie does not appear to be available on DVD in Region 1. Perhaps the fact that Portia de Rossi is an Australian has prompted its release in Region 4.

    The Glow is a television movie in almost every respect, suitable to pass a couple of hours only on the wettest of Sunday afternoons. There are no genuine scares, but the film does manage to build a little tension as we wait to see how long it will take for Jackie to discover the health secrets of her older benefactors and just how long it will take her to convince Matt of the same. Worth a rental as a "weekly" selection only.

    The video quality is good.

    The audio quality is technically adequate but unremarkable.

    The extras are missing in action.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall