CRIMSON PEAK highlights Blu-ray, DVD and Digital Release for Feb. 9, 2016

By PETER BROWN / Associate Editor

Posted: February 13th, 2016 / 11:00 AM

A slow week, which is probably to be expected after such a huge roll out of films and TV last week. Unfortunately, not that great of stuff but sometimes that’s how it goes.

Movies:

CRIMSON PEAK | © 2016 Universal Pictures Home Entertainment

CRIMSON PEAK – There is something to be said about ghost movies and period pieces. They sometimes work and can be fairly amazing to look at. On the other hand, it risks becoming too bloated with so many costumes and crazy beautiful images that it derails the storyline. CRIMSON PEAK, unfortunately, falls into this category. It is a beautiful movie with vivid images, costumes, set pieces and even some decent ideas about ghosts and crazy haunted locations. But the storyline gets too caught up in showing these off instead of dealing with either it is a ghost story or a story regarding a couple (played by Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain) that is batsh** crazy. Instead we get handfuls of both in equal amounts while we already know the twist the story has been trying to keep under wraps from the very beginning. It doesn’t fool anyone and when it comes it is more like a lead balloon than a wow moment. Nothing wrong with the production or acting here but everything is telegraphed and so there is nothing shocking. Still if you want a good looking movie with some elements of horror to keep you busy, this fits the bill.

MI-5 | © 2016 Lionsgate Home Entertainment

MI-5 – Taking advantage of the slew of intelligence and spy movies that have come along in the last few years as well as capitalizing on the U.K.’s popular TV series SPOOKS, this spy movie focuses on the British intelligence organization dealing with national security threats inside of England. Unlike the James Bond films or MISSION IMPOSSIBLE franchise, this seems to be more focused on reality, albeit a heightened reality. The storyline follows an escaped terrorist that poises a severe threat to national security and MI-5 must team with a disgraced intelligence official to track him down. As it is not a MI or Bond flick, the action is not nearly as intense as those movies as it is more about investigation and using resources to uncover where the terrorist is and how best to catch him before he goes about doing bad terrorist things. So if you want an action spy feast, look elsewhere, but if like your spy flicks with more, uh, intelligence, MI-5 is worth checking out.

CONVERGENCE – Despite a flashy cover and interesting premise, CONVERGENCE isn’t covering any new ground here. You have the basics of 1,001 other horror flicks. A mysterious hospital. A supernatural presence. A cop protagonist that gets drawn into the fray as the result of a so-called terrorist incident at the hospital. Spooky music. Eerie hospital staff. What follows is a poor man’s episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE with the cop trying to figure just what is happening. Is he going mad? Is there really a terrorist that is stalking the hospital or is it just the visions of something worse? Do we even care after a certain point of going through the same motions in so many other films? If you are in desperate need of a supernatural cop thriller, then you might want to take a gander.

SOCIOPATHIA – An interesting take on the slasher genre in a story about a woman that works as a costume designer for movies but hides the fact that she is also a sociopath that lows to kill her boyfriends and dress them up as puppets for her own twisted means. But she soon meets someone she really likes and she must balance her internal and external craziness with trying to maintain some sort of a relationship. But soon she begins to lose her grip on what’s real with deadly consequences. If you can stomach the bad acting that is here and the B movie type feel it isn’t necessarily a bad horror flick.

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