Thursday , March 28 2024
A gory, unimaginative, uninteresting snoozer of a film.

DVD Review: Battleground (2012) [aka Skeleton Lake]

In the world of deceptive home video marketing, a simple title change is all it takes to get people’s attention. Granted, that attention might not be positive interest, but there’s no such thing as bad publicity, right? Shot under the somewhat ambiguous title, Skeleton Lake, the indie horror/action flick Battleground received a new name prior to its less-than-eagerly-awaited home video release, conveniently timed with the just-as-unwanted Battleship. Apart from the use of guns, there are no similarities between the two movies. Well, other than they both suck, that is.

But we’re dissecting Battleground here. Not Battleship. The barely noticeable trace of a story for this dud finds several men banded together to pull off a multi-million dollar heist escaping from the authorities (following their dastardly crime) and fleeing to the woods. Mistakenly believing they’re alone out there, the men soon realize that a demented Vietnam veteran (Hugh Lambe) — who has been living out in the woods for years, in his own, blood-crazed little world — has set his murderous sights upon them.

One by one, The Hunter tracks his prey down — which is fitting as they left a cop dead in their wake. But the ‘Nam vet isn’t picky with who he ices: he’s also after a young actress (Lee Sandford) whose only crime was having a truly lousy agent. And so, they all die (oh, spoiler alert there, kids), with the cool-but-frenzied, grizzled, former army man slicing off the faces of his victims, playing Russian Roulette with ’em, and in-general delivering what can only be described as a passable Rutger Hauer impersonation.

If this sounds like your kind of trash, then by all means get it. I’ll stick with The Most Dangerous Game. Hell, I’d even watch Surviving the Game over this.

Well Go USA brings us this no-budget turkey to DVD (and Blu-ray) with an anamorphic widescreen 2.35:1 ratio (‘cuz this film really needs to look like it was shot in Scope) that looks very nice, and which shows the film’s poor CGI exceptionally well. The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is an OK affair, and the only special feature included here is a trailer. But of course, even that’s too much for this gory, unimaginative, uninteresting snoozer of a film.

About Luigi Bastardo

Luigi Bastardo is the alter-ego of a feller who loves an eclectic variety of classic (and sometimes not-so-classic) film and television. He currently lives in Northern California with four cats named Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Margaret. Seriously.

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