Plague Town (Severin Films Blu-ray Review)

Is Plague Town Trash or Treasure?

Blu-ray Distributed By: Severin Films / November 27, 2020

A tourist family lost in the Irish countryside. A remote village that hides a hideous secret. And the taboo-bashing indie horror milestone that has been called “maniacally twisted” (Horror News), “chilling and disturbing” (Blu-ray.com) and “an experience that goes where most mainstream horror fears to tread” (Fangoria). Experience this “brilliant” (Quiet Earth) hybrid of grisly ‘70s shockers and graphic 21^st century folk-horror – hailed as “an icy hand gradually sliding along the back of your neck for 90 minutes” (Mondo Digital) – from co-writer/director David Gregory (BLOOD & FLESH: THE REEL LIFE & GHASTLY DEATH OF AL ADAMSON) and the producers of STAKELAND, now featuring an uncensored HD master and Brand New Special Features. Now UNCUT and UNCENSORED.

Jimbo’s Take (2 / 5)

Have you ever watched a movie, read a book, or simply made a decision, and then afterwards you wanted to justify said decision so badly that you forced yourself through mental gymnastics?

Like the first time you saw Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Sure Jar-Jar Binks sucks, and young Anakin can’t act, and the story doesn’t make any sense, but man that lightsaber battle!

Or after you voted for Joe Biden? Sure he’s old, has dementia, racist as hell, has caused more governmental problems than solved, but he’s not orange! AMIRITE?! Coolstyle!

Well that’s how I feel about Plague Town. I really want to like this movie. It has evil children in the woods. A few grizzly death scenes with some legit practical gore effects. Moody, creepy atmosphere in parts. Most of all, it’s the first major feature film directed by documentarian and Severin Films co-founder David Gregory (Blood & Flesh: The Reel Life & Ghastly Death of Al Adamson). I’m a HUGE Gregory/Severin fan so I don’t want to say anything less than positive about Plague Town. But it just kinda sucks.

Plague Town just feels like a student film. Granted, it feels like an above average student film, but a student film nonetheless. Most of the cast/crew had never made a feature length horror film, so there’s reason for grace and forgiveness. But grace and forgiveness can only go so far.

It’s biggest flaw is the script. The story idea is sound enough: Family in the woods gets lost, stranded, and attacked by mutant children. Basically an updated Children of the Corn. Unfortunately, characters fall into your typical horror cliché traps that will elicit audience groans instead of shrieks.

Example: Two of our characters, who happen to be sisters, are investigating a dark house. They’ve been attacked, they’ve seen people murdered, there’s evil children everywhere in the woods. They’ve seen their fair share of evil shit. Everyone watching the movie knows DON’T EVER SPLIT UP. So what do they do? Decide to split up!!! And their reason for splitting up? They can search the house faster. Dumb, dumb, duuuumb!!!

Pretty sure the audience is thinking survival outweighs speed, but the filmmakers need this plot point to happen and aren’t experienced enough writers to come up with a better justification to place the duo in peril.

Unfortunately, Gregory’s inexperience as a director doesn’t help pick up the slack left by the bad script either. In one scene, Mom is being surrounded by the children and “played with” (aka tortured). Instead of putting her hands up to defend herself, Mom just lays on the ground moaning “No…” and “Stop…” while getting whacked with branches and eventually clubbed with a hubcap. Is that a directing problem? Is that a performance problem? Both? Again, it gets back to that feeling of this being a student film. Neither the script or director conceive of a plausible reason that Mom can’t defend herself.

Another criticism is with the film’s opening “flashback” scene. Plague Town begins “14 Years Ago”. Is that 14 years from today? Or is that 14 years before 2008, the film’s release date? Never explained. But ultimately I believe the scene is supposed to represent the origin of the plague town. I don’t quite know if I consider it a writing problem, an editing one, or simply a structural one, but the opening scene could be completely removed from the film and it would not be missed or impact the film’s story or conclusion. Nothing in the course of the feature ever ties back to the origin scene thereby rendering it completely irrelevant. At it’s most fundamental, it adds nothing of value whatsoever and a good writer/director/editor would recognize this. Yet no one does.

These sound like nit-picks, but they are prevalent and persistent enough throughout Plague Town‘s entire runtime that it’s death by a thousand cuts. There’s not one glaringly horrible moment to derail the movie. It’s these small, minute details sprinkled throughout the film that ultimately make it deteriorate from inside out…kind like a plague.

The Tech Stuff (4 / 5)

David Gregory and team get the big, technical stuff correct. Despite being shot on super 16mm, Brian Rigney Hubbard’s photography looks pretty damn good. The special makeup effects, by rookie Ivy Ermert, although not perfect, look incredibly good for a low budget indie feature. The soundtrack mix left me somewhat underwhelmed, but the music accompaniment and general dialogue mix help smooth out the rougher edges.

If only the script were as strong as the technical aspects, I think Plague Town might have a better following. But because the movie looks and sounds pretty clean on this Severin Films’ blu-ray I feel compelled to award it high technical marks.

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audio: English 5.1 & 2.0
Closed Captions: English
Region 0/Free

Extras (5 / 5)

Perhaps this is where David Gregory and team will forgive me for my harsh criticisms…

If this Severin Films blu-ray were released as feature documentary White Lace & Button Eyes, and one of the blu-ray extras was Plague Town, the movie score would be a 4 instead of a 2. David Gregory is an excellent documentarian. So much so, that he had the foresight to have his cast and crew record daily video logs during the production in 2008 that are now used in Howard Berger’s feature documentary. Incredible!

The doc used both old footage and new virtual meeting footage (due to the Covid lockdowns) to interview cast and crew, then and now. The doc frames a candid view into the troubles of the production. Even David Gregory is refreshingly honest and forthcoming about his naivete as a new filmmaker. (He’s so likable that it still makes me feel bad about disliking his movie.) And the doc succeeds because the real life struggles in the making of Plague Town resonate more than the fictional ones in the movie of Plague Town.

But that’s not all! The archival supplements from the 2009 Dark Sky blu-ray release are all here. Short films Scathed and Til Death are interesting looks at Gregory’s early aesthetic. And if you look carefully, you’ll stumble upon a hidden musical Easter Egg.

2009 Audio Commentary – Audio Commentary with Director David Gregory & Producer Derek Curl
White Lace & Button Eyes – The Making of PLAGUE TOWN by Documentary Filmmaker Howard S. Berger
A Visit to Plague Town – Behind the Scenes Featurette
The Sounds of Plague Town
Trailer
Short Films: SCATHED, TIL DEATH
Musical Easter Egg

Trash or Treasure? Overall Recommendation

The Plague Town blu-ray is one of those rare releases where the special features are the reason to own. I do not recommend Plague Town as a feature film. As a bare bones DVD or blu-ray I would easily say pass on it. But the special features put me in a rare and precarious position. Who recommends a blu-ray for a feature film that is okay at best? I guess I do. It sounds stupid, but so is voting for Joe Biden and expecting coherent sentences, you dog-faced-pony-soldier!