AUTOMATON TRANSFUSION (2007)

Automaton Transfusion (2007)
 

Director: Steven C. Miller
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Language: English
Subtitles: English, Spanish
Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only)
Number of discs: 1
Studio: Weinstein Company
DVD Release Date: March 4, 2008
Run Time: 75 minutes

DVD Features:

• Feature Commentary With Writer/Director Steven C. Miller And Producers William Clevinger And Mark Thalman
• Trials And Tribulations: The Making Of Automaton Transfusion
• Deleted Scenes (with optional Director's commentary)
• Suffer Or Sacrifice: A Short Film By Director Steven C. Miller
• "Can You Hear Me Now" Music Video By Blinded Black
• "Arsenaholic" Music Video By Dancefloor Tragedy
   

Yup, this DVD will have you holding down your lunch - but no, it's not because of the "brutal gore fest" promised by Moviethunder.com on the back cover blurb.

It's because of the jerky image quality. Automaton Transfusion must boast the suckiest DVD encoding we have ever seen in a mainstream release by a major Hollywood studio, even if they are so-called "independents".

This DVD is being released by Dimension Extreme which belongs to Dimension Films, basically the horror movie branch of the Weinstein Company.  The Weinstein brothers, get this, built their reputation on making "art house" films for Miramax. Who would have guessed whilst watching Chocolat that one day the producers would churn out the sort of cheap straight-to-DVD trash that outfits like The Asylum - the makers of Snakes on a Train - specialize in.

Or it could be the technical limitations of the digital equipment that was used to film Automaton Transfusion (it really is a cheap movie). Whatever the case: the jerky image soon had us as sick as your typical Cloverfield audience. It did what the sight of livers being ripped from victims, people being beheaded and the heads being eaten, etc. etc. - all of which got pretty tired real soon in any case - couldn't. (One way to spot pimply teenagers making a movie: they will always try to gross you out, for much the same reasons a six-year-old boy would blow milk from his nose.)

Add charmless lead characters, a by-the-numbers plot and you'll soon be pressing the Eject button on your remote as it's really a bitch getting vomit stains out of your lounger.

Each generation has its own defining horror movie the trailer for this movie proclaims. If Automaton Transfusion is this generation's defining horror movie, then this generation (whoever they might be) is definitely being short-changed. They're probably better off checking out their fathers' horror movies in such an event. Ones such as Night of the Living Dead, which realized that it wasn't enough to gross your audience out, but that you actually have to scare them too. . .

(Zombie flicks you might want to check out instead: Shaun of the Dead, any of the Resident Evil flicks - yes, Automaton Transfusion is really that bad - 28 Weeks Later . . . and Planet Terror.)