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S E A R C H    D V D B e a v e r

(aka "La Entidad" )

 

directed by La Entidad
Peru 2015

For their documentary film class final project, Joshua (Rodrigo Falla), his ex Carla (Daniella Mendoza), obnoxious camera buff Benjamin (Mario Gaviria), and nerdy pushover Lucas (Carlos Casella) decide - at Carla's suggestion - to make a film about reaction videos: viral videos documenting solely the reactions of viewers to offscreen videos of extreme subject matter. After viewing one particularly strong example on the internet, Carla recognizes one of the participants as Sergio, a guy she met on vacation in Lima and she suggests that they should extend their documentary to interview him and discover what video he and his friends were viewing. When they arrive in Lima, they learn that Sergio and the two friends that watched the video are dead, victims of apparent freak accidents. Sergio's half-brother Santiago reveals to them that Sergio and his friends had found the video in the archive of a local cemetery and that it depicted an act of torture. Sergio left him a copy of the film but he deleted it after viewing a portion of it. The group talks Santiago into taking them to the cemetery where they discover the film in its original form is a 16mm reel depicting what appears to be a scene of medieval torture by the Inquisition. Santiago runs off but Lucas' camera captures his grisly and physically impossible death. Frightened by the death and being implicated in it, the group return home. Seeing dollar signs for possible proof of the paranormal, Benjamin pushes his friends to analyze the film and its possible connection to the deaths of Santiago and the others. As they technologically dissect the audio and video (including strange chanting in the ancient Incan language of Quechua), strange alterations to the image have the terrified quartet starting to believe that the curse that killed the others has now been cast upon them.

THE ENTITY's only distinguishing feature from the glut of "found footage" horror movies is that it is Peruvian, but we have already seen that even foreign language films of the sub-genre have little novelty beyond the language of the dialogue (and sometimes more authentically atmospheric locations than found stateside). While the better examples trade on the horrors of the unseen and the possibility of something actually in the shadows being captured by an objective camera rather than the more stylized angles of traditional filmic depiction, THE ENTITY pretty much ensures the viewer from the first frame that we are going to get a CGI "entidad"; and, indeed, the film anticipates the execrable PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: GHOST DIMENSION with the addition of 3D to the "found footage" lexicon (the characters shoot with a pair of 3D cameras purloined from the university department and the end credits list a "stereoscopy" technician among the effects credits, although the film is presented here in 2D and it does not seem to have been heavily screened or at all in 3D). The technically-slick film might at least qualify as a diversion if there weren't just so many films of this type popping up on physical media and streaming services on a weekly basis.

Eric Cotenas

Posters

Theatrical Release: 22 January 2015 (Peru)

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DVD Review: Omnibus Entertainment - Region 0 - NTSC

Big thanks to Eric Cotenas for the Review!

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Distribution

Omnibus Entertainment

Region 0 - NTSC

Runtime 1:19:30
Video

1.78:1 Original Aspect Ratio

16X9 enhanced
Average Bitrate: 7.0 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 Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo
Subtitles English, none
Features Release Information:
Studio: Omnibus Entertainment

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen anamorphic - 1.78:1

Edition Details:
� Start-up trailers for 'The Mirror', 'Forgetting the Girl' and 'Hide and Seek'

DVD Release Date: April 5th, 2016
Amaray

Chapters 12

 

 

 

Comments

The film's brevity and lack of extras allows for Omnibus to give THE ENTITY a relatively high-bitrate progressive, anamorphic presentation on a single-layer DVD. The digitally-photographed image looks good on DVD given the "found footage" aesthetic and the various digital manipulations applied to the image from CGI to various simulated video defects. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix (and 2.0 downmix) is generally front-oriented given the talky nature of the film and mostly naturalistic sound design but creepy low sound effects do goose the soundcape directionally and in depth, so the surround track is the recommended option. The optional English subtitle translation has a couple awkwardly-phrased lines but it seems to be the fault of the ad-libbed dialogue. There are no extras apart from start-up trailers (including the British "found footage" pic THE MIRROR).

  - Eric Cotenas

 


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DVD Box Cover

CLICK to order from:

 

 

 

Distribution

Omnibus Entertainment

Region 0 - NTSC

 



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