- Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
- Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
- Resolution: 1080p/24 (23.976Hz)
- Audio Codec: English LPCM 2.0 (48kHz/16-bit)
- Subtitles: English
- Subtitles Color: White
- Region: A (Region-Free)
- Rating: Not Rated
- Run Time: 77 Mins.
- Discs: 1 (1 x Blu-ray)
- Studio: MPI Media Group
- Blu-ray Release Date: September 4, 2012
- List Price: $29.98
–
Overall
[Rating:3/5]
The Film
[Rating:2.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:3/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:3/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:2.5/5]
Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures
(All TheaterByte screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG at 100% quality setting and are meant as a general representation of the content. They do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)
–
The Film
[Rating:2.5/5]
Young filmmaker Emily Hagins has been making her own movies since she was prepubescent. By the age of 11, she had several shorts under her tiny belt and wrote the feature-length script for the zombie film Pathogen. It garnered her a Texas Filmmakers Production Fund grant from the Austin Film Society, making her the youngest recipient in history.
My Sucky Teen Romance (2011) was made when Hagins’ was 17. Hagins writes and directs this teen romance horror spoof on her own Millennial generation’s fascination with vampires. It’s a basic story that follows the 17-year-old Kate (Elaine Hurt) who goes to a SpaceCon convention (a local sci-fi/fantasy/horror convention) with her friends on her last weekend home before leaving for college. There she bumps into the nerdy checkout guy Paul (Patrick Delgado) whom she has a crush on. Unbeknownst to Kate, Paul has recently been turned into a vampire, but he hasn’t yet completed the transformation. While the two build up a romance, Paul accidentally turns Kate into a vampire when he goes to kiss her and a passerby bumps them causing him to bite her instead. From then on, the two must find a way to reverse the effects with the help of Kate’s friends.
My Sucky Teen Romance is decidedly low budget and the acting is more high school production than pro, but Hagins does show great potential, nonetheless, for a filmmaker so young. Her mixture of hip pop-culture references, intermingling of video game footage, and quirky humor gives the film an up to date feel.
Video Quality
[Rating:3/5]
I tried to find some technical information on this release, but I couldn’t. If I were a gambling man, however, I’d put good money on this being captured on one of the Canon EOS cameras, either the 5D Mark II or the 7D. It has that sort of look with colors that aren’t quite natural, textures that are a bit smooth, some obvious video noise, posterization, and aliasing that is normally seen in the recent crop of films captured using the video function on these cameras from Canon whose primary function is as a high end digital still camera.
Audio Quality
[Rating:3/5]
Audio is a simple LPCM 2.0 (48kHz/16-bit) stereo track. Perhaps due to the low budget of the recording, it isn’t always up to the highest of standards as dialogue can drop a little bit low and become just a little difficult to discern. Otherwise, the musical soundtrack, which is a pretty hip mixture of alternative rock styles, sounds rather good with strong stereo separation, a punchy midrange and good extension into the lower ranges.
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:2.5/5]
The disc has been adorned with the usual slate of extras and for those who want just a bit more of Hagins’ quirky style, there’s a short film included as well.
The supplements:
- Audio commentary with writer/director Emily Hagins and producer Paul Gandersman
- Behind the Scenes (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:11:09) – A look at the film’s production with interviews with cast and crew.
- Deleted Scene (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:02:51)
- “Cupcakes” Short Film (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:02:05) – A rather odd short finds a cutsie couple having a disagreement over who should pay for a couple of cupcakes.
- Blooper Reel (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:01:55)
- Trailer (1.78:1; 1080p24)
The Definitive Word
Overall:
[Rating:3/5]
My Sucky Teen Romance is definitely appealing to a niche market, but that said, its young filmmaker has a lot of potential and one can certainly see what she would be capable of given higher budgets and more life experience. This Blu-ray only looks average, but it is probably as good as this film can get.
Additional Screen Captures
[amazon-product]B008B9JU3A[/amazon-product]
Purchase My Sucky Teen Romance on Blu-ray at CD Universe
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
–
[amazon-product]B008B9JU3A[/amazon-product]
Purchase My Sucky Teen Romance on Blu-ray at CD Universe
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:3/5]
The Film
[Rating:2.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:3/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:3/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:2.5/5]
–
