Review of Torso

Introduction

Tried and convicted for the murder of her husband, Torso charts the story of Evelyn Dick, aka "The Black Widow" in one of Canada`s most lurid cases. It`s not all as clean cut though as things first seem, with a few skeletons hidden in the cupboards (or indeed walls) of the family home, just how far did her parents go to help her.

Video

Video quality is pretty good though with it being a TV movie there`s nothing particularly outstanding in terms of content. The 1940`s setting is nicely presented and backed up by the soundtrack but it never quite looks and feels authentic but then there`s only so much you can do on a TV movie budget.

Audio

The sound as with the visual quality is good but nothing particularly great. The music adds to the late 40`s feel of the movie and is mostly slow jazz in a somewhat vain attempt to give it a bit of a film noir feel it seems. Dialogue is clear and well done throughout the movie.

Features

Nothing, not even the "Animated menu`s" many tout as an extra…

Conclusion

There`s just one thing really wrong with this movie…it`s not terribly interesting. The case is somewhat gruesome and the main character is cold and callous, a lot of the ingredients for what could be a strong movie yet everything is pretty obvious from the start. The twists aren`t even all that surprising and you can see them coming from almost a mile off. The one redeeming factor is that the acting is quite good but when the characters are so one dimensional then it doesn`t help a great deal.