Freeway Killer Blu-ray

Freeway Killer

 (2009)

Horror



For years he terrorized California motorists as he rode the endless highways searching for his next victim. The discarded bodies turned up beaten, sexually assaulted and horribly mutilated. Deceptively charming and intelligent, the scheming murderer easily avoided police at first. But as police closed in and the killer’s pattern grew more erratic, the only question was how many more will die?

For more details about Freeway Killer on Blu-ray, see the Freeway Killer Blu-ray Review

Starring: Michael Rooker, Helen Wilson, James Babson, Cole Williams, Scott Leet
Director: John Murlowski

Freeway Killer Blu-ray, Video Quality

 


The Freeway Killer was shot on…I dunno, SD video? Really bad high definition cameras? Poorly transferred 16mm? Honestly, the 1080p/AVC-encoded image is so blurry and indistinct that it’s hard to tell. Since I can’t dig up any technical specs online, I’ll hazard a guess and say this was shot on some sort of video. In the commentary track, director John Murlowski talks about serving as his own DP, but judging from the outcome, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. The picture is consistently soft and gauzy, as if someone had taken a normal high definition image and smeared it with Vaseline. Even in the tightest close-ups, fine detail, like skin texture and eye lashes, is completely missing. Color reproduction fares slightly better, but not by much. The film has a dim, murky look—once again, like a modern Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer—with colors that are muted and thin, with few exceptions, like the blue exterior of Bonin’s van. Black levels are adequate during the daytime scenes, but the darker sequences are hazy, with detail frequently lost in opaque shadows. Noise is also erratic, sometimes buzzing heavily over the image, sometimes nearly absent, and sometimes both within the same scene. I’ve seen upscaled DVDs that look much better than this.

Freeway Killer Blu-ray, Audio Quality

 


The film’s DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track is at least a step up from the video quality, and while you won’t confuse this with, say, Transformers 2, the mix is more than adequate for an ultra-low budget serial killer flick. The surround channels aren’t incredibly active, but you will hear some neighborhood ambience and a few oh, look, they tried panning effects, like Bonin’s van moving from left to right through the rear speakers. The score is forgettable, and at times anachronistic, but I was impressed by the pulsing LFE drone that the film often uses to underscore the more horrific moments. The various gruesome sound effects are also appropriately squishy and disgusting, and the dialogue throughout is well-balanced and easy to understand.