Death Row
(Horror)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: D Feature: D
Since
Anchor Bay started switching hands a few times, Kevin Van Hook has become the
company’s in-house genre director.
Hoping he might have a breakthrough, we have been watching his projects
with some curiosity, but the Jake Busey/Stacy Keach disaster Death Row (2006) is a big setback that
tells us anything working before was likely dumb luck.
Keach
tells some young idiots about how his prison went bonkers as if the inmates
became demonically possessed and took over the place. These same younguns are (surprise!) taping a
documentary (maybe it should be Blair Witch Prison) when they “luck out” and
“all hell” may break loose. Unfortunately,
none of this is credible and it just gets worse and worse. Keach looks as bored as you will feel after
the first five minutes and it never begins to be believable. It would be one thing to root for the
prisoners to riot, but since they are satanic or something like that, you
should not be rooting for them to kill everyone so this will end quickly. Instead, think 90 minutes of being in an
electric chair, or at least staring at one.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is weak and not even as good as some
other Van Hook releases, so this is backwards for him and Keith A. Dugan. What were they thinking? The Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 are
surprisingly weak, with little surrounds or richness, even for Dolby. Is this Starz doing? Extras include stills, art work for the
production, two featurettes, DVD-ROM screenplay and Van Hook commentary.
- Nicholas Sheffo
