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 S E A R C H    D V D B e a v e r

 

directed by Michael Petroni
Australia 2015

 

With virtually every post-SIXTH SENSE ghost story, audiences anticipate a twist and few are truly satisfying. BACKTRACK knows this and presents it supernatural twist as a given in its press materials and gets it out of the way pretty early on in order to explore the ways in which people can haunt themselves as a subconscious means of dealing with loss, grief, and guilt. Having recently lost their daughter Evie to a road accident, psychologist Peter Bower (Adrien Brody, THE EXPERIMENT) and his wife Carol (Jenni Baird, ALIEN TRESPASS) are trying to start over in Sydney. While his wife's depression is treated with medications that have her barely able to get out of bed, Peter has agreed to therapy from his mentor Duncan (Sam Neill, EVENT HORIZON) while trying to get his own private practice off the ground with a series of patients including amnesiac musician Felix (Bruce Spence, ROAD WARRIOR) who thinks it is still 1987, suicidal mother Erica (Anna Lise Phillips, ANIMAL KINGDOMM), and selectively mute high school student Elizabeth (Chloe Bayliss) who mysteriously disappears after seeming to die in his office. When Peter discovers that all of his patients are actually dead, even he at first assumes that it is more likely that he is having a breakdown than the idea that he is being haunted until he recalls that all of these patients had been referred to him by Duncan. Discovering that the patients had all died on the same day back in 1987 and that they all lived along a train route that passed through his home town of False Creek, Peter revisits his estranged retired police officer father (George Shevtsov, DEAD CALM) and childhood friend Barry (Malcolm Kennard, MY MISTRESS) in the interest of laying to rest old ghosts. He comes clean with the police - including the constable daughter of one of his ghost patients (Robin McLeavy, THE LOVED ONES) - but the ghosts not only continue to haunting him but become even more aggressive, pushing him towards long suppressed memories that shed an even more sinister light on what he believed to have been a tragic accident.

Eric Cotenas

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Theatrical Release: 29 January 2016 (UK)

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DVD Review: Arrow Films - Region 2 - PAL

Big thanks to Eric Cotenas for the Review!

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Distribution

Arrow Films

Region 2 - PAL
Runtime 1:26:03 (4% PAL speedup)
Video

2.40:1 Original Aspect Ratio

16X9 enhanced
Average Bitrate: 5.9 mb/s
PAL 720x576 25.00 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 none
Features Release Information:
Studio: Arrow Films

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen anamorphic - 2.40:1

Edition Details:
� Audio Commentary by writer/director Michael Petroni and cinematographer Stefan Duscio
� Interviews (with 'Play All' option; 16:9; 15:13):
� - actor Adrien Brody (16:9; 5:43)
� - actor Sam Neill (16:9; 1:50)
� - actress Robin McLeavy (16:9; 3:00)
� - actor George Shevtsov (16:9; 1:03)
� - director Michael Petroni (16:9; 3:33)
� Behind the Scenes (16:9; 6:42)
� Deleted Scenes (with 'Play All' option; 16:9; 6:19):
� - 'William and Peter' (16:9; 1:31)
� - 'Peter Visits Elizabeth's School' (16:9; 1:16)
� - 'Constable Henning Meets Peter' (16:9; 2:31)
� - 'Constable Henning Drives Peter Home' (16:9; 0:58)

DVD Release Date: March 14th, 2016
Amaray

Chapters 12

 

 

 

Comments

Arrow Films' dual-layer DVD provides a good SD presentation of a film where all but the close-up are swathed in shadow and a subtle softness that suggests an isolation of the character from his environment. The Dolby Digital 5.1 track is typical of modern horror films but with fewer bassy jump scares. Writer/director Petroni contributes an audio commentary with his cinematographer in which he discusses how the idea for the film came as sort of a darker extension of themes he explored in his romantic feature debut TILL HUMAN VOICES WAKE US. He also elaborates on the significance of the Bruegel painting to the film and the film's window motif. The short interviews are not very substantive as the actors try to elaborate on characters that are not that deeply developed in the first place while the deleted scenes offer a couple extensions as well as an intriguing scene in which the protagonist first begins to suspect the film's first major revelation. The behind the scenes piece is not really a featurette so much as a montage of B-roll footage.

  - Eric Cotenas

 

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DVD Box Cover

CLICK to order from:
Distribution

Arrow Films

Region 2 - PAL

 



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