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When a supernatural force causes Elizabeth, a young reporter, to investigate an old house, she finds herself to be the only hope for a family of long-dead ghosts stuck in limbo. But when the demented father of the family, who is still living, hears about her visits, he takes action to make sure that the truth is never told.

This is one of those times when I took a chance on reviewing a no-hype, low-profile new film for the heck of it. I was hoping for a diamond in the rough. You never know unless you try, right? Highly ambitious auteur Michael Feifer wrote, directed, produced, and had a role in this film. For what the film tries to be, even with the supernatural elements, it plays by the rules within its universe. And there are some creepy shots and scary moments in a spooky mansion. Elizabeth’s plight has its good moments. Some guerilla filmmaking comes through on occasion, for this is low-budget film that can be admirable. But most of the cinematography by Hank Baumert Jr. (who has previously worked with Feifer) is quite plain and straightforward.

Lovely Alexandra Holden (The Hot Chick) as lead character, Elizabeth, is a solid actor and literally carries the film. A few fighting scenes are disappointingly weak and not convincing, but other than that, supporting acting is fine and a little better than I expected. Some may recognize a few holdovers from the notorious The Devil's Rejects including Leslie Easterbrook, Bill Moseley, and Sid Haig. Even the director’s wife, Caia Coley, is cast as a ghost, and she does a fine job. Haunted house aficionados may find some scenes intriguing as folks explore the dilapidated home, ghosts make their revelations, and a stalking villain chews the scenery. But there just isn’t a lot of fresh material here.

Colorful actors and a well-planned, economical shoot can’t support the essence of this bland mystery. Some shots of the city look nice, but most scenes have very little style; the film lacks a visual edge that it desperately needs to punch things up. Feifer notes that he only had two cameras, so that could have been part of the problem. Some of the violence didn’t seem very real and looked more like weak gags. Semi-jaded viewers will find most of the plotting very clichéd and predictable. While it’s obvious that hard work and organization is onscreen, a vital cinematic finesse of sweaty, driving momentum required for this kind of story does not emerge as it should.

Producing dozens of independent films in a variety of genres, Michael Feifer has a reputation of making films on time and on budget much to the happiness of film executives. I genuinely liked Michael Feifer in the audio commentary with his engaging, attentive, friendly personality. This guy has a passion for films. And his continued involvement with many different stages of film making, according to his website, shows that he’s not slowing down anytime soon. I would hope that his future projects could afford a flashier visual style. Moreover, despite his successful experience, maybe Feifer could run his future scripts across some fresh, objective, experienced eyes that identify with the genre of his particular screenplay. A Dead Calling may be a blasé film, but filmmaker Michael Feifer definitely has the potential to get better.

The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

The film’s direct-to-DVD aspect ratio of 1.78:1 is presented in anamorphic video. During the audio commentary Barnholtz reveals that this film was shot in 720p high definition digital. Twenty-minute long recordings were saved on gigabyte cards and downloaded to a Macintosh platform for efficient and inexpensive processing and editing. He also notes that the high definition Sony HVX-200 camera he used was fairly new and during the first three days of shooting he had almost no idea what he was doing, but once he did he was off and running. This economy allowed him the extra time and money to shoot a few extra scenes for the film, including the punk (actually portrayed by Gage Hubbard, the film’s make up artist, thrown in for kicks) who got run over as an “extra kill for fun.”

As with other digital films, this one is utterly blemish free. Scenes with proper lighting are very clear with reasonable small object detail. Unfortunately, edge halos are prevalent throughout this film. Well lit, still close ups are very clear and revealing of finely grained textures on the actors’ faces. Colors are saturated reasonably well, but except for some downtown Los Angeles neon lights, nothing is very vivid. Flesh tones look very natural most of the time, although in a few office scenes they can lean toward pink.

Sadly, much of the film quality is fraught with problems. Right out of the gate, it is noticeable that this film exhibits a soft appearance, which hampers the clarity of small object detail. Blacks are deep, rich, and look terrific during the opening credits; I was impressed and hopeful. And contrast is nicely balanced during well-lit scenes. But back at the spook house and during the evening sequences in the last half of the film, blacks can fade and frequent suffer with black crush. The grain gets shockingly rough during the climax; it’s some of the heaviest grain I’ve ever seen for a recent film. [It’s possibly electronic noise caused by high gain to compensate for low light. - Ed.] During the screen-specific audio commentary I had hoped Feifer was going to address the grain issue. Obviously, this reduces depth and small object detail to crap status, and it becomes distracting. The film quality has its promising moments, but it has more disappointing moments. Mastering the process and art of high definition video recordings can only get better.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

The disc includes a Dolby Digital 5.1 track. Dynamic range in the front channels is average; there are some nice directional pans and the highs are clear enough, but the lows are mediocre. Dialogue is recorded well with natural timbre, although some ADR (looping) is obvious if you listen carefully. Glenn Morrissette’s music fits the film well, and has the greatest frequency range on the track when the volume is amped up during drama, but not so much during quieter moments. Some bleeds from the fronts make it to the back, but rear discrete effects are placed at particular times in the film, like passing cars. Surrounds display an average frequency range. The low frequency effects usually come from the score, as mentioned, but a few effects make the woofer come somewhat alive. Much more could have been done with the bottom end. There’s not much to get excited about, although the audio is generally fitting with the tone of the film.

An alternative English Dolby Surround 2.0 track is included, as well as English Closed Captions and Spanish subtitles.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

Barry Barnholtz adds a scene-specific audio commentary that is excellent. Frankly, I enjoyed his commentary more than the film. Barnholtz is very energetic and friendly as he generously expounds on the technicalities and the genesis of the film. He’s very encouraging of beginning filmmakers and shares many economical techniques in details that are noteworthy. Despite the fact that film is fairly cliché ridden, he still seems to have a love for the entire process.

A still gallery of twenty shots from the film include some behind the scenes shots.

Last are trailers including: An American Haunting, Black Water Valley Exorcism, the acclaimed horror film, The Descent, A Deadly Calling, See No Evil, and Zombie Nation.

The 90-minute film is organized into nineteen chapters.

Exclusive DVD-ROM Features: What happens when you pop the disc into your PC?

There are no DVD-ROM features on this DVD.

Final Thoughts

Falling for the DVD’s alluring coverart, I decided to give this film a shot. Despite the fact that I like the energy and attitude of the director, the film has a rather cheap, plain feel and it’s fairly predictable. I wanted more creativity and pizzazz. The transfer is from a 720p high definition digital recording that is clean but the transfer has problems with softness, halos, and some heavy grain. The audio quality is reasonable. Since I feel the audio commentary supplement is better than the film, the disc is highly recommended for the commentary.