Matt Ryan (Constantine, Legends of Tomorrow) reprises his live-action and animated role as the Hellblazer himself in Constantine – The House of Mystery. In the all-new short, John Constantine wakes up in the eerie House of Mystery with no recollection of how he got there. Fortunately, Zatanna and his friends are all there. Unfortunately, they have a bad habit of turning into demons and ripping him to shreds, over and over again! Camilla Luddington (Grey’s Anatomy) and Ray Chase (Licorice Pizza) reprise their roles from Justice League Dark: Apokolips War as Zatanna and Jason Blood/Etrigan, respectively, while Robin Atkin Downes (The Strain) and Damian O’Hare (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl) reprise their roles from Constantine: City of Demons as Negral and Chas, respectively. In addition, Grey Griffin (Scooby-Doo franchise) and Lou Diamond Phillips (La Bamba, Longmire, Young Guns) join the cast of the short, which is directed by Matt Peters (Injustice) from a script by Ernie Altbacker (Batman: Hush).
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[youtube https://youtu.be/_Ii4uA0MNE8?t=2384]
Video Quality
Constantine: The House Of Mystery comes to Blu-Ray with a striking 1080p transfer. This may be a darker tale, but the colors present in this transfer are practically leaping off the screen with the wide range of vibrant hues permeating the frame. The textures, from the character designs to the environments, are extremely impressive and give the film a real sense of depth. Black levels are very strong with no hint of compression artifacts or digital anomalies of the sort. There is some slight banding when faced with harsher gradients. One of the areas where the film really shines is the intricacy of the character designs. The subtle touches that are added to each individual is quite striking. The level of detail these animators put into each environment shines through here. This is simply a beautiful looking Blu-Ray presentation.
Audio Quality
This release boasts a DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track that gets a workout during thrilling moments of each tale. There is an immense amount of activity in the low-end during moments of full-throttle action, but this happens more in The Losers more than Constantine. Dialogue is often accompanied by a serviceable score or all manner of sound effects, but all of the information comes through clearly without getting muddied. The track engages all of the channels with panning effects and unique environmental sounds that really makes you feel like you are transported to these worlds. Warner Bros. has knocked it out of the park with this track.
Special Features
- Additional Shorts
- Kamandi – The Last Boy On Earth!: An eighteen-minute short film based on the 1970s comic series created by Jack Kirby. The titular character is on an adventure through a post-apocalyptic land alongside mutant Ben Boxer, tiger prince Tuftan, and hulking gorilla-man Zuma. There is an interesting contest element to this one that leads up to a nice hint towards a larger DC property. You have to appreciate a throwback property like this getting its due. This short was originally featured as a bonus feature on Justice Society: World War II.
- The Losers: A 16-minute short that features the characters from the comic series created by Robert Kanigher in 1969 that was later re-launched as a Vertigo title in 2004. In this short, a ragtag group of WWII outcasts including Captain Storm, Henry “Mile-a-Minute” Jones, Gunner, Sarge, Pooch, Johnny Cloud, and Chinese Special Agent Fan Long find themselves on a mysterious island where they must try to survive an onslaught on ancient beasts. This one sets up for a continuation that really needs to happen as soon as possible. This short was originally featured as a bonus feature on Batman: The Long Halloween, Part One.
- Blue Beetle: A 16-minute goofy throwback short that features the characters from the classic comic series that is quite unlike what we usually get out of this line. Matt Lanter voices Blue Beetle with appearances from other characters such as Captain Atom, Nightshade, The Question and Dr. Spectro. This is lighthearted and campy in a way that brings you back from the darkness of The Long Halloween. I would not mind seeing more of this in the future. This short was originally featured as a bonus feature on Batman: The Long Halloween, Part Two.
- DC Showcase – One Story At A Time: A 16-minute piece in which the creative team behind this collection of shorts discuss the freedom that comes with telling these stories as one-offs, how they adapt the animation style to the material, how they were inspired by the source material, the plot of each of the shorts, the dark comedy they were able to weave into some of these stories, how exciting it was to utilize certain characters and set up dynamics for the future, the vocal performances and more.
Final Thoughts
This epilogue Constantine: The House of Mystery finds the creative team wanting to play around in their previously established timeline a bit without shaking things up too much. This Groundhog Day-adjacent narrative explores a bit of the internal torment and longing of its titular character, but the brief running time leaves you wanting a bit more on an emotional level. There are some very inventive, deliciously dark sequences within this story, yet you cannot help but wonder what things may have looked like if this had been fleshed out into a full feature. The other three previously-released shorts that are included are a ton of fun, and they represent the type of vault-mining we want from DC in the future. Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has served up a top notch A/V presentation and some fantastic extra shorts to make this set even more worthwhile. If you are a DC fan, you should have a good time with this release. Recommended
DC Showcase – Constantine: The House Of Mystery is currently available to purchase on Blu-Ray and Digital.
Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.
Disclaimer: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment 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.
Dillon is most comfortable sitting around in a theatre all day watching both big budget and independent movies.
