The Revenant Blu-ray Review: Made With Love & Understanding of the Genre
The fact that The Revenant lacked cinematic distribution is a nothing short of a joke and further proof that mainstream Hollywood has its head firmly up its backside.
Its not very often that a film does a 180 degree turn away from your expectations. The Revenant does exactly that. But despite a quirky, irreverent core premise and generally commendable execution, The Revenant failed to secure UK cinema distribution and thus arrives to you as a straight to Blu-ray/DVD feature. Theres no denying that this is an under-the-radar release. The first Id heard of this horror/buddy comedy was when the opportunity to review it came up. The Revenant is the definition of an indie flick: low budget, but with a high factor of invention and ingenuity. After Bart (David Anders) is killed in action while fighting in Iraq, hes shipped home to receive a 21-gun-salute funeral, while BFF Joey (Chris Wylde) begins the mourning process. But before long, Bart reanimates from the dead and pays Joey a visit. Sounds ominous, in a Pet Semetary sort of way right? But theres a slick twist on which the whole movie is founded: Bart fully retains his humanity and intellect even if he does have to drink blood to reverse his decomposition. Despite the warnings of his Wiccan nurse friend Mathilda, Joey decides to help Bart find fresh blood. At first they hit blood banks but when that proves ineffective they up-scale to homeless people, to little avail (theyre sort of useless at murder). However, when they turn the tables on a violent mugger, they begin to realise that Bart is nigh-on-immortal and set their sights on criminals as a source of nourishment. Before long theyre beheld as folk heroes by the citizens of LA and dubbed the Vigilante Gunslingers. 
The Revenant is one of those rough gems that youll find oh-so-rarely in the budget film section. And to be honest, youd be forgiven for skipping over it completely as a viable option for purchase. For starters its a horror/comedy one of those sub-genres that seems to guff out unwatchable movies around eighty-five per cent of the time. And its straight-to-video too, which isnt usually a branding of inherent quality. But forget everything you think you know about cheap horror when it comes to The Revenant. It defies its station as a bargain feature; in fact its actually very good. Director Kerry Prior has had a rather prolific career in the field of special effects already, and Id say hes a director to keep an eye on. The Revenant is his second directorial feature (he also penned and produced it) having already spanned a healthy career as an effects veteran in Hollywood over the last twenty-five years. In The Revenant his direction is concise but purposeful; the film has a constant driving pace and the plot develops almost rhythmically, with the two central characters Bart and Joey accentuating each other like a snare to a hi-hat. Joey is instantly likeable; a goofball with a penchant for drink and drugs, while Anders plays Bart 's empathic nature up nicely, believably wrestling between that and his newly inflicted need for fresh blood. Hes basically a good guy, but thanks to forces beyond his control his un-dead life cant help but spin out of control. 
I found it difficult to place The Revenant at first glance. Is it a Vampire movie; is it a Zombie movie; is it a Vigilante movie? In essence, its all of these things a little and none of them fully. Weaving a narrative thats one part Re-Animator, one part Evil Dead and one part Punisher, The Revenant cant help but feel unique. The vigilante element certainly solves the where does an un-dead find corpses without innocent lives being lost conundrum (as posed in Pet Sematary for example), allowing Bart to fully go down that road without losing the empathy of the audience along the way. Kerry Priors writing isnt hacky, or clichéd in any way as is usually the case with horror-comedy, in fact quite the opposite. The Revenant is a movie made with utter love and understanding of the genre behind it and the tonal references to others of its ilk feel like nods of homage as opposed to idle pastiche. A scene involving a severed, reanimated head and a cheery pink vibrator cant help but echo Lovecraft with a modern twist, for instance and may just be one of the most zealously disgusting, and guiltily hilarious cinematic moments of the year so far. And Barts regular tendency to barf up justtoo much black blood reeks of Raimi, and I mean that as a compliment. One of the films strengths is in its wanton marrying of ideas; Bart is zombie like, but hes technically more of a vampire in that he retains full social function and must drink blood, but hes also a vigilante. Its a film that takes a risk and tries something totally off-the-wall (undoubtedly why its struggled to secure distribution) and I absolutely commend its creator. 
However that said The Revenants mish-mash of thematic ideas can often overload the senses, especially toward the third act, when the multi-stranded story seems to tie itself in knots in places. One moment we might be laughing, the next were expected to squeal, soon after weve got to sympathise, later we marvel at the righteousness (or wrongteousness, as the case may be) of the central character. Its one of those unfortunate instances when a films greatest strength at times is also its biggest pitfall. While the film isnt perfect (but lets be honest, theres no such thing as a perfect film), its certainly damn good, especially when you consider the budget and the genre. For many, low-budget horror comedy is a terrifying prospect; not for the typically weak scares within but for the almost certain waste of 90 minutes that it usually leads to. Not with the Revenant though. The gore is great (the director is an effects guru after all), the plot is unique and unpredictable if slightly muddled towards its conclusion and with its darkly satirical final commentary on Americas war on terror, The Revenant is indubitably worth its budget pricetag. Film rating:4
The Revenant stumbles in the odd dramatic pothole here and there, but never does it drop to a metaphorical knee. What I expected to be another shitty low-budget Zombie snoozer turned out to be a well-written, well-acted, visceral, dark comedy with heaps of gore, plenty of laughs and believe it or not, a pretty big heart. Not bad for an indie without a distribution deal. Buy this movie, Hollywood needs to be taken down a peg. Transfer Qualityrating:3
The transfer aint perfect; theres quite a bit of pixellation in the darker scenes and of those there are quite a few but on the whole the AVC encoded 1080p delivers more often than not. What it does very well, is capture the sickening detail of the gore-spewing, head-popping special effects with an unsettling clarity. Sound Qualityrating:4
In a Raimiesque move, director Kerry Prior wants you to hear everything in fantastic front-and-rear speaker detail. Youll wince at the sound of every one of Barts dry-wretches (more so at his wet ones), at every popping stitch, at every inhuman squelch. Its a fantastic audio mix, and one to be commended when you consider the type of movie The Revenant is. Special Featuresrating:3
Along with three audio tracks by principal actors and the man himself Kerry Prior, theres also a Making The Revenant featurette running for 13 minutes. That and another 12 minutes of deleted scenes make up the entirety of whats on offer. Theres a decent amount here and even if it is heavily leaning towards audio, its enough to add a layer of value to an already fantastic blu. Overallrating:4
Id even been told by our long-suffering editor Matt that this film was meant to be surprisingly good; still I wasnt expecting this. Its better than good, its great and perhaps the best part was that sense of pleasant surprise I felt while watching it. The fact that The Revenant lacked cinematic distribution is a nothing short of a joke and further proof that mainstream Hollywood has got its head firmly up its backside.
The Revenant is out now on Blu-Ray and DVD.