Poison Ivy 4: The Secret Society Blu-ray

New Line Cinema | 2008 | 95 mins | Unrated | Jan 20, 2009

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Video Video codec: VC-1 Video resolution: 1080p Aspect ratio: 1.85:1 Audio English: Dolby Digital 5.1 English: Dolby Digital 5.1 (less) Subtitles English English (less) Disc 25GB Blu-ray Disc

Price List price: $35.99  Amazon: $21.99 (Save 39%) Third party: $18.98 (Save 47%) Usually ships in 24 hours Blu-ray rating Users 4.5 Reviewer 0.5 Overall 1.2 Based on 1 user rating Playback Region free

Poison Ivy 4: The Secret Society

If you're the sort of person who slows down to gawk at a car accident, the hideous and revolting 1080p/VC-1 monstrosity included on the Blu-ray edition of Poison Ivy 4: The Secret Society should appeal to your macabre sensibilities. Everything... I mean everything on display here is an absolute mess. Colors are grossly oversaturated, skintones are either flushed or bronzed, black levels are unresolved, and contrast is undeniably lifeless. It doesn't help that dimensionality is fairly flat and image depth is only convincing in a few interior shots. Worse still, the actresses look as if they've been molded from Play-Doh, object edges are smudged and soft, and textures are literally non-existent. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find a single pore on a single face or even a freckle or mole that hadn't been completely wiped away (either by a massive application of DNR or the film's poor source resolution, I couldn't tell which). It may sound like I'm exaggerating but, believe me, I'm not.

Worst of all, the picture looks as if it's going to splinter apart at any given moment. Obvious artifacts fill every background, macroblocking is apparent in each scene, pixels cluster around fast-moving objects, mosquito noise swarms every on-screen element, banding pops up everywhere, crush riddles darker shots, and severe aliasing and ringing are constant issues. Honestly, short of mistakenly reviewing a shoddy DVD for a Blu-ray disc, I can't imagine what a more problematic transfer would actually look like. Unless you can't resist your own curiosity, stay far away from this one.

Poison Ivy 4: The Secret Society Blu-ray, Audio Quality

Poison Ivy 4: The Secret Society doesn't sound much better than it looks. With nothing more to offer high-def enthusiasts than a thoroughly uninvolving Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track, the film's already substandard sound design has been heavily compressed and haphazardly slapped onto a Blu-ray disc. Dialogue is often either mushy or tinny and, on occasion, even warbled or indistinct. In fact, there were several scenes in which one of the Ivies would sound as if they were in a completely different room than whomever they were speaking to. Similar discrepancies abound throughout the production and are often accompanied by other weaknesses and inconsistencies. Low-end bass tones are few and far between, the rear speakers are practically silent for the duration of the film, and the film's scattered effects are stagey, noticeably disjointed from the soundscape, and crammed into the center speaker. Sure, I haven't had the displeasure of comparing the BD track to the standard DVD mix, but I suspect I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two.

It gets worse. Directionality is a joke, channel pans are inconsistent and stocky, and the soundfield is front-heavy and uninviting. Like the film itself, I didn't find much of anything to love in this thin, muddled excuse for an audio track.

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