Monsters (Blu-ray) (2010)

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General		Extras
Category	Science Fiction	Main Menu Audio & Animation Interviews-Crew-Exclusive Q & A at the Melbourne Premiere Interviews-Cast & Crew-Cast & Crew Interviews Featurette-Behind The Scenes-B - Roll Theatrical Trailer-Monsters Teaser Trailer-Madman Trailers
Rating
Year Of Production	2010
Running Time	93:44
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Gareth Edwards
Studio Distributor	Vertigo Films Madman Entertainment	Starring	Whitney Able Scoot McNairy Fernando Lara
Case	Standard Blu-ray
RPI	$29.95	Music	Jon Hopkins

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Unknown	English Linear PCM 48/24 5.1 (4608Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080p
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Eailer this month, I reviewed the Madman DVD edition of Monsters. So, is the Blu-ray a marked inprovement and is the selection of extras any different? The following synopsis has been taken from my DVD review.

    With his debut feature, British filmmaker, Gareth Edwards has produced one of the most impressive independent films of 2010. Monsters is proof that the production of quality science fiction is possible without massive budgets and the involvement of major Hollywood studios.

    The best way to give a synopsis of Monsters is to start by relaying the words that open the film..."Six years ago NASA discovered the possibility of alien life within our solar-system. A space probe was launched to collect samples, but broke up during re-entry over Mexico. Soon after, new life forms began to appear and half the country was quarantined as an Infected Zone. Today, the Mexican & US military still struggle to contain "the creatures".

   After establishing the basic premise, the narrative then centres on an American photo journalist, Kaulder (Scoot McNairy) and a young female tourist, Samantha (Whitney Able), who just happens to be the daughter of Kaulder's employer. Kaulder is on assignment around the Infected Zone, when he is given the task of safely escorting his boss' daughter back home to America. When their train journey is stopped because of track damage, the pair decides to continue on by foot and travel through the dangerous, Infected Zone to reach the US border.

    The film has a principal cast of just two, with additional roles played by non-actors. While all the locations are real, most of the dialogue is improvised. The small cast and crew shot countless hours of footage, which was initially edited down to four and a half hours. Further edits brought the film down to its current running time of ninety minutes.

    Gareth Edwards talents as a filmmaker are literally on display in every frame of Monsters. He has five key credits in the film including, writer, director, cinematographer, production design and the all important, visual effects. With a very small budget and limited resources, this film manages to sustain a high degree of authenticity, which often lacks in many bigger productions.

    The visual effects in Monsters were all produced in post-production, using commercially available software. Many of the locations were especially selected and filmed to accommodate these visual effects. In post, Edwards digitally transformed anything of use including, road signs and menu boards into maps and warning signs. He composed each frame with the intention of later adding, deleting or changing something in post-production. As previously mentioned, the end result is really quite an achievement. For me personally though, the only visual let down were the alien creatures themselves. I would have preferred something a little more sinister and aggressive - but that's only my opinion.

Video

    Monsters is presented on Blu-ray in the correct aspect ratio of 2.35:1. The Blu-ray has been encoded using MPEG-4 AVC compression and is presented in 1080p.

    Obviously the Blu-ray transfer is an improvement over the DVD, but it's certainly not a chalk and cheese comparison. For the most part, the image exhibited a nice degree of clarity and sharpness. Blacks were clean, with minimal grain and shadows held excellent detail.

    In direct comparison, the Blu-ray delivers a more vivid and vibrant colour range over the DVD. This was far more apparent.

    The Blu-ray exhibited some blocking at 45:59, which continued spasmodically for around 14 seconds. My first thought was that this was a compression artefact. But each time I back tracked, it seemed to behave slightly different. Sampling the same scene on another Blu-ray player gave different results again. At first, the second player had no problem with the scene. But then on re-sampling, I noted a couple of brief pauses. The second player however, did not exhibit any of the blocking. Aside from this issue, film-to-video artefacts were negligible and film artefacts were non-existent.

    English subtitles for the hard of hearing are available on this disc. The subtitles are in bold white and are quite accurate.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    I had no problems with the dialogue quality and audio sync appeared to be accurate.

    The original music score by Jon Hopkins enhances the general eerie ambience of the film really well.

    The surround channels were mostly active early and then late in the film. The mix is quite sensible and isn't overstated at all. Likewise, the subwoofer was only noticed during the more dramatic scenes. The fidelity of the Blu-ray clearly out strips the DVD.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    Unfortunately, this Blu-ray edition offers nothing new in terms of extras from the DVD.

Featurette - Exclusive Q&A at the Melbourne Premiere (27:12)

    As the titles suggests, this was filmed at the Melbourne premiere of Monsters on 9th November 2010. Following the screening, Gareth Edwards discusses many aspects of the film with the audience.

Interviews - Cast & Crew

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall