Ex Machina (2015/A24/Lionsgate Blu-ray)/Helix: Season 2 (2015/Sony Blu-ray)/'71 (2014/Lionsgate DVD)/What The Peeper Saw (1972/VCI Blu-ray + DVD)

Picture: B/B-/C/B- & C+ Sound: B+/B/C+/B- & C+ Extras: C+/C-/B-/C- Main Programs: C+/C-/B/B-

Here's a new group of thrillers out on home video, some of which you may have heard about, plus a few gems you should go out of your way to check out...

Alex Garland's Ex Machina (2015) was a surprise hit earlier in the year with a young computer worker (Domhnall Gleeson) 'winning' a contest to meet the head of the big computer corporation he works for, who (as played by Oscar Isaac) turns out to be more like a Fred Flintstone/Barney Rubble type who likes to drink and knowns computers inside out than an egghead or suit-bound guy. Turns out he is isolated in his own overly-teched out home (making him a sort of Dr. Moreau of a lost Bedrock) when he introduces a gal (Alicia Vikander) to his employee who turns to be a robot.

There are times this is interesting, but other times this is flat, the interplay between the male leads is lacking with our 'visitor' just too naïve for his age in bookwise, streetwise or life matters, while our genius waxes poetic about life always with a touch of being unhappy and a bit predatory in ways that are too obvious and telegraphed throughout. The results can be repetitive and questions asked secondary to ones that are never asked, showing the limits of the guts of this film.

Vikander is winning as the female robot, which the makers have tried to do something new with, but they cannot escape the basic design the underrated director/filmmaker Chris Cunningham came up with in his work, then for Kubrick's abandoned sci-fi film that became Spielberg's disappointing A.I. and also surfaces as the robots in the Will Smith I Robot (reviewed elsewhere on this site), but the film has enough good moments to explain its commercial success. However, it fails overall as a total film and is not up there with the best on the subject, like Godard's Alphaville (1965) among others. I thought the ending was unintentionally funny and that should not have happened either.

Extras include Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and iTunes capable devices, while the Blu-ray adds 8 promo vignettes on the film, a 5-part Making Of featurette Through The Looking Glass: Creating Ex Machina and a SXSW Q&A with Cast & Crew featurette where the director starts talking about the dangerous unchecked power tech companies have in creating such things or in our lives, but the film practically never goes there.

Helix: Season 2 (2015) continues the latest in a cycle of outbreak tales we have been seeing in recent years, with or without zombies, et al. One of our fellow writers was only so impressed with the debut season (I was less impressed than he, see the review elsewhere on this site) so I thought I should give the sophomore season a look and as hard as it is to believe, it is even muddier, flatter and duller than the debut one. The 13 new hourish episodes continue from the arctic beginnings of that season and have few places to go.

The results are like a bad soap opera doing lower-case X-Files with no point. I try to be fair with everything I cover, but when you got a dud, you got a dud, though it would make more sense to start with the first season and work your way to this one if interested. This is also too techie and not enough about character or doing something different. That is why it is about to get the ax from what we hear. Now you can judge for yourself.

Deleted Scenes & Outtakes on the discs, plus brief episode synopses on the inside of the label are the only extras.

Vann Demange's '71 (2014) is the big surprise this time out, a thriller set in the year 1971 when British soldiers are sent to Ireland in the middle of their own civil war (Catholics vs. Protestants, et al) while two versions of the IRA (the older 'keep the UK out' version vs. the new 'kill any UK soldiers that show up no matter what' version) with Jack O'Connell (Unbroken) as a British soldier just starting to take on duties, but landing up being lost and left behind when a giant incident of violence breaks out that the commanders underestimate. They start looking for him, but he is not well and is doing what he can to survive.

On the streets, he gets help and is able to pretend to not be who he is, but this does not always work out. We get some amazing acting scenes, action moments, chase scenes and outright suspense that manages to stay in the brutally honest, realistic and deadly world of all these competing conflicts and with great directing and an amazing supporting cast we should know more of in the U.S. (some of which I recognized just the same) in one of the best independent films to come out of the UK in the last decade or so. Consider this one a must-see just waiting to be widely discovered and don't miss it!!!

Though horrifically and unacceptably not listed by Lionsgate on the packaging, there is a solid feature length audio commentary track on the film by the director, Producer Angue Lamont & Writer Gregory Burke and an Original Theatrical Trailer, plus we get Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and iTunes capable devices.

James Kelly's What The Peeper Saw (1972) is a creepy thriller with Britt Ekland becoming the new step-mother of a young man (Mark Lester, still in his child actor run) coming into the family's life after the mother (we see in the opening scene) died in a bathtub. But was it an accident or murder? To make things worse, as she starts to find her way into the family, she slowly starts to suspect it was the son who did the killing!

There is nothing sappy, phony or stupid about this film which could have easily become a soap opera or bad melodrama or even cheesy B-movie thriller, but instead is realistic, honest, deals with the politics of the matter (including sexual politics, creepy as that can get) and is one of the best thinks Ekland ever did during her streak of interesting feature films that included her 1974 Bond film The Man With The Golden Gun. She looks good here, but actually gives a real acting performance of which she was accused of not doing in most of her films. Lester is smart as well and this pacing and density of how things play out is well done.

VCI worked for years to be the company to get this one out on home video and reissued overall, so now they have released it in both DVD and limited edition Blu-ray form, the latter of which I would more highly recommend. It is the kind of honest indie horror thriller we got all the time then and rarely do now, made better by good directing and a solid supporting cast that includes Hardy Krueger, Lilly Palmer and Harry Andrews. If you missed this one or have not seen it in a long time, catch it again, especially in this uncut version.

Extras on both versions only include an Original Theatrical Trailer and Original TV Spot.

The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on Machina is a digital shoot, but despite not being any kind of knockout, is still very consistent and well made enough to be the best performer here often having semi-monochromatic uses of color throughout. The contrasts with some more colorful shots, like all too rare outdoor sequences.

The 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on the Helix episodes in comparison are styled down and a tad darker than they need to be, working against a show that already had its share of problems. Dark does not mean we'll take it more seriously, but that we will yawn and wonder why that old cliché is being played out here again.

Therefore, despite some slight color fluctuations, print issues and other minor age issues, the 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on the Peeper Blu-ray looks as good and VCI did their best yet again with flawed material to make the film look as good as it was supposed to to begin with. It also has some of the best color shots of anything here, though the anamorphically enhanced DVD sold separately which is on the soft side. I am please with the Blu-ray's presentation and shows the film at its best as good as I had ever seen it.

That the the anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on '71, which is a great shoot combining film and HD the way the highly underrated Nightcrawler with Jake Gyllenhaal did. The nighttime shooting is all HD, but instead of using 35mm for daylight shots, the makers used anamorphic 16mm for daylight work and it looks great. Unfortunately, the DVD transfer is too soft to really show off how good the work looks to its fullest extent.

As for sound, Machina is the film for which DTS is introducing its new 11.1 sound format, DTS: X, which will be compatible with all DTS-HD MA and regular DTS systems, but is especially designed for new DTS: X receivers. They have also added a DTS Headphone: X 2.0 version for those who want to hear the film that way in what they claim envelops you much like 11.1, though I would not go that far. With that noted, the 7.1 mix is impressive throughout, especially because of its use of subtle sounds throughout, plus the film is well-recorded for the most part.

The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes on Helix episodes are the default highlight of that set, are consistent in their soundfields and are second best her, followed by the cleaned up PCM 2.0 Mono on the Peeper Blu-ray sounding better than the film ever has, even when it shows its age. The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on '71 has some good sound design, only held back by the older sound format, but a lossless Blu-ray would really pay off here, so the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on the Peeper DVD is able to compete by default. That would not be the case otherwise.

- Nicholas Sheffo