Otis on Blu-ray Disc Review
By Brandon A. DuHamel
The Film
Warner's latest release in its direct-to-video horror series
Raw Feed is a dark comedy of sorts that examines the horrors of what goes on behind the walls of suburbia. Combining slasher, torture, revenge, and thriller genres, the film brings together the same production team from another
Raw Feed release,
Sublime, whose members have also worked on such little-known fare as
24 (Tony Krantz),
The X-Files (Thomas Schnauz) and
Band of Brothers (Erik Jendresen). With such a pedigree one might expect something special to come out of
Otis.
Otis is certainly not the first movie to ever combine horror and comedy, nor is it the first to peel off the layers and expose the creepy underbelly of suburbia. Films like
The Stepford Wives,
So, I Married an Axe Murderer,
Really Bad Things and
Fargo have mined similar territory previously. The problem with
Otis, is that it neither scares nor amuses, although it tries very hard to do both.
Otis' sardonic witticisms fall flat and the film comes off more as a quirky stand-alone episode of
The X-Files than the satiric look into the darker side of the human psyche that it wants to be.
Otis' plot revolves around overweight forty-year-old pedophilic pizza deliveryman Otis Broth (Bostin Christopher) who is developmentally stunted and tormented by his older brother, Elmo (Kevin Pollak), and treated by him as a contemptible pariah. Otis stalks the suburbs kidnapping teenage girls and chaining them up in his "dungeon", decorated as a girl's bedroom and rigged with video cameras where he dresses them up in various costumes forcing them to play out his debased fantasies and sawing them into pieces if they refuse to cooperate. When he makes a delivery to the Lawson household, he spots Riley (Ashley Johnson) and immediately becomes infatuated with the pretty blonde teenage girl. He abducts her the next day, making her his sixth victim, taking her to his lair.
Riley's family, portrayed as a seemingly typical suburban U.S. family with more problems than they let on to the outside world, comes across as more cliché than satire. There's her bickering and seemingly clueless parents, played well by Illeana Douglas as mother Kate and Daniel Stern as father Will. Of course, no "American" family would be complete without the slacker drug-addict, ne'er-do-well son/brother and Jared Kusnitz fills the role nicely as Riley's brother Reed. When the search for Riley ensues, the FBI is called in, led by an inconsiderately rude agent, Agent Hotchkiss (Jere Burns) whose one-liners drop like so many bombs missing their targets.
The funniest segment of
Otis also happens to be its goriest, when Riley manages to escape her captor and tells her parents where she was. As the other three members of the Lawson clan seek out their revenge on Otis Broth while their beloved Riley lay recovering in the hospital, the blood begins to spill and the most laugh-inducing lines begin to flow, such as when Reed asks Kate "what's the blender for?", her response, "I thought your Dad could cut off his fingers and toes and we could blend them into a smoothie and make him drink it." It's quite telling, however, that this so-called satire of slasher films doesn't actually reach its stride until it becomes more egregiously violent than the films it is trying to parody.
Otis has its moments -- the acting from Illeana Douglas carries the film's more "comedic" acts and Ashley Johnson is surprisingly adept during the uneasy scenes confronting the sex-maniac that has her chained and dressed up in silly cheerleader outfits and revealing prom dresses, but the scariest part of this film is the schizophrenic mood and lack of its ability to shock, scare or amuse.
The Picture
Otis was originally shot on high definition video cameras, but their quality is suspect. The movie's VC-1 encoding of its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio suffers from a soft, diffuse image that not only suffers from video noise in darker areas, but also has washed out blacks that appear more a dull grey flannel than inky black. Lighting and color saturation are realistic, highlighting the movie's take on what is supposed to be the wonderful world of suburbia. Unfortunately, the lack of detail leaves clothing looking unrefined and skin textures pasty. There are no artifacts due to the compression apparent, so things such as macroblocking and mosquito effects are a non-issue, leaving
Otis looking about as good as it is going to get.
The Sound
Otis offers English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless and Dolby Digital 5.1 as its surround options in addition to Portuguese and Spanish Dolby 2.0 dubbed versions. The lossless TrueHD mix of the dialogue-heavy film offers clean, full dialogue in a front-heavy mix that only provides mild ambient effects to the surrounds. The sound mix's musical score and late-70's/early-80's soundtrack provides some moments for the sound field to open up a bit, but mostly it is a reserved and unspectacular mix, yet it works for the material at hand.
The Extras
There are no extras on this release.
Final Thoughts
Otis fails as a either a parody of horror or a straight ahead slasher flick. It lacks suspense, laughs, and fails to frighten in any way. It’s unfortunate that such strong acting performances by Illeanna Douglas and Ashley Johnson have been wasted and will most likely be forgotten in what ultimately amounts to a boring film. Sadly, the mediocre picture quality and average sound don't help rescue this release either. If you really need to check this one out for yourself, I strongly suggest renting it first.
Where to Buy
Product Details
- Actors: Bostin Christopher, Ashley Johnson, Daniel Stern, Illeana Douglas, Kevin Pollak
- Director: Tony Krantz
- Audio/Languages: English Dolby TrueHD 5.1, Portuguese & Spanish Dolby 2.0
- Subtitles: Chinese, English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish
- Region: ABC (All Regions)
- Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
- Number of discs: 1
- Rating: Not Rated
- Studio: Warner Home Video
- Blu-ray Disc Release Date: October 7, 2008
- Run Time: 100 minutes
- Retail Price: $28.99
