In Allegoria, a group of artists’ lives become unwittingly entangled as their obsessions and insecurities manifest monsters, demons and death. Written and directed by Powerman 5000 frontman Spider One.

For thoughts on Allegoria, please check out our discussion on The Video Attic:

[youtube https://youtu.be/pC_apB9Esjc?t=740]

Video Quality

The film debuts on Blu-Ray with a 1080p presentation in its original aspect ratio that captures the film pretty well. The movie itself is not wonderfully saturated with color with its relatively muted palette that does not pop off the screen, but most elements are at least detailed and clear. There is slight loss of detail in some of the panning shots, but it is not a major issue throughout. The movie relies on darkness to build tension and uncertainty, so it is a good thing that the transfer provides fairly deep black levels that do not show major signs of crush. Objects hold up pretty well in the shadows and retain their depth with only slight banding. There is no damage or digital noise detectable in this transfer. There are not very many moments that are going to scream “reference material”, but this is a solid video presentation overall for what it is trying to accomplish.

Audio Quality

Allegoria comes to Blu-Ray with a pretty strong DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio track. The experience is quite precise and effective, and will be appreciated by horror fans who pick up this disc. Dialogue and sound effects are appropriately balanced with the music where nothing gets muddled in the track. The movie does not provide the most intense workout, but environmental sounds provide a creepy, immersive atmosphere for these stories. The low end of the track provides some nice texture when more horrific territory is being explored. This track is a solid representation of the narrative. There are optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles provided.

Special Features

Interviews With The Cast Of Allegoria: A substantial 81-minute collection of interviews with writer/director Spider One and actors Krsy Fox, Adam Busch, Bryce Johnson, Edward Hong and Josephine Chang. In these interviews you get a sense of why these creatives wanted to tell this story, the themes they wanted to explore, what it was like working with Spider One as a director, setbacks and triumphs during the production and much more.

Cast Q&A With American Cinematheque At The Los Feliz 3 Theatre: A pretty solid 21-minute Q&A in which the cast and creative team discuss the origins of this project, how all of the segments fit together, the development of certain scenes, the strong directorial choices made in this and more.

Final Thoughts

Allegoria is an anthology horror film that has its fair share of creepy and grotesque moments, but the experience struggles to sustain itself over its brief runtime. With the anthology format, your biggest hope is that you have more good segments than bad, and unfortunately that is not the case here. Despite many of the segments complementing one another, the film fails to be engaging and cohesive throughout. Spider One shows definite promise behind the camera, but these segments needed a bit more development on the script side of the equation. RLJE Films has released a Blu-Ray featuring a good A/V presentation and a pretty solid assortment of special features. If you are a horror fanatic, there are some moments worth checking out in this one, but there are far better examples of the anthology format.

Allegoria is currently available to purchase on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital.

Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.

Disclaimer: RLJE Films has supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.