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TV show review: CONTINUUM season 4
PHOTOGRAPHY

CASE 39
DVD Review by David Blackwell

DETAILS:  110 minutes, four featurettes, deleted scenes
VIDEO:  2.35:1 (Anamorphic Widescreen)
AUDIO:  English, French, Spanish 5.1, English DVS
Subtitles:  English, French, Spanish

STUDIO:  Paramount Vantage/ Misher Films/ Anonymous Content
RELEASE DATE:  1-4-2011

Social worker Emily Jenkins (Renee Zellweger) fights to save a girl (Jodelle Ferland) from her parents.   Emily finds out the situation is more evil and dangerous than she expected.  She enlists the help of her psychologist boyfriend (Bradley Cooper) and Detective Mike Barron (Ian McShane) to solve the mystery behind why the parents want the girl Lilith dead.  Are the parents really crazy or will Emily find out there is another truth behind what she sees on the surface?

 

CASE 39 is a creepy horror film.   It paints itself as a thriller before adding in the horror film elements.   It is the journey of one woman to save a child and she finds out the kid may not be what she appears to be.    The only part of the film I think is a letdown is the ending.   The cast is top notch with Ian McShane threatening to steal the film with the very few scenes he is in and I love the performance the little girl gives (with a  variety of emotions and moods).  Christian Alvart directs the film with so much detail and paces it expertly, but I still think the wrongfully ignored PANDORUM is a film you should check out after this one if you haven’t seen the superior PANDORUM.

 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The 30 minutes of deleted scenes include scenes that would have padded the movie out, and alternate death scene for one character, and an alternate ending I think is more true to the movie than the theatrical ending.  The only problem with the scenes overall is they are time coded letterboxed fit into a widescreen frame making the scenes very small on the screen.

 

The four featurettes are mostly promo fluff containing a few interesting tidbits like how detailed Director Christian Alvart is in storyboarding his films and how many set-ups he shoots in a day.   Three of the featurettes focus briefly on behind-the-scenes details of three major scenes in the film.

FILED UNDER ‘EVIL’: INSIDE CASE 39

TURNING UP THE HEAT ON THE CHILL FACTOR

INSIDE THE HORNET’S NEST

PLAYING WITH FIRE

 

 I wish there was an audio commentary for the film or even commentary for why the deleted scenes were cut.

 

FINAL ANALYSIS:   CASE 39 is a creepy horror film which I wish had the alternate ending attached to it instead of the ending the film has.   Kudos for the amount of deleted scenes included on the DVD (just pity on how they were presented).

 

This DVD review is ©1-7-2010 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to lord_pragmagtic@hotmail.com