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S E A R C H    D V D B e a v e r

Directed by Peter Atencio
USA 2010

 

When a tropical storm forces an offshore drilling company to evacuate non-essential personnel from the "Charlie" oil rig, the small but experienced crew left behind settles in to ride out the storm. Isolated on the rig, their routine night is interrupted when a crew member goes missing and an extensive search proves futile. Slowly, they discover that a deadly creature is stalking the crew, eliminating them one by one. Surrounded by nothing but raging ocean with no hope of escape, the roughnecks must survive the stormy night with an unrelenting force of death hunting them down.

Japanese DVD

Theatrical Release: September 3rd, 2010 - DVD (Japan)

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DVD Review: Anchor Bay - Region 1 - NTSC

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Distribution Anchor Bay - Region 1 - NTSC
Runtime 1:34:06 
Video 1.78:1 Aspect Ratio
Average Bitrate: 4.78 mb/s
NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s   

NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.

Bitrate:

Audio English (Dolby Digital 5.1) 
Subtitles English (SDH), Spanish, None
Features

Release Information:
Studio: Anchor Bay

Aspect Ratio:
Original Aspect Ratio 1.78:1

Edition Details:

• The Rig: Behind the Scenes (9:33)
• Theatrical trailer (1:44)

• Previews (6:31)

DVD Release Date: October 5th, 2010

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Chapters: 12

 

Comments:

Firstly, this is a very poor creature-feature. NOT in the 'so bad' it's good sense either. What I like to see, with limited budget straight-to-video releases, is some minor spark of creativity - and The Rig had... none. The 'creature' (who has about 45 seconds of actual screen time) has no evolutional development - it just 'exists'. It's a good plot for a horror atmosphere with the isolated oil rig and raging storm - but poor conception, development and completion. Characters get a few lines of development and then, as soon as they are alone, they get devoured in a blood spattering mess. This story had potential but came up very short.  

The Anchor Bay DVD is single-layered, anamorphic and progressive. The 1.78 image quality isn't fatally poor considering the SD medium - but you can smell the budget limitations with characters running down similar hallways shot from different angles. With a lot of darkness and poor compression there is abundant noise evident. It is, predictably, clean but the visuals didn't turn me off as much as the film itself.

Audio was a bit scattered but the 'monster' had some punchy effect noises. Bruce Fowler's score also had some potent, earthy riffs. The audio was probably a good notch ahead of the video transfer, anyway. The DVD was encoded with optional subtitles and is encoded for region 1 in the NTSC standard.

I think the filmmakers could have done much more with this - without indulging in extra funds. The script wasn't well thought-out or storyboarded with any degree of efficiency and the production, correspondingly, looks slapped together. Hey, I don't know the circumstances around the shooting but a couple of extra days of preparation wouldn't have hurt the proceedings to add important details. Unfortunately, this get's thumbs down - especially at its exorbitant price. Don't waste your time. 

Gary W. Tooze

 



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Distribution Anchor Bay - Region 1 - NTSC



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