Sex, power, money. The Skulls have it all. Join Joshua Jackson (Fringe, Dawson’s Creek), Paul Walker (The Fast and the Furious) and more as they pledge to the elite and secret society known as The Skulls, where anything is possible as long as you’re willing to keep their terrible secrets. Loaded with spine-tingling bonus features, they are the gripping and suspenseful shockers where privilege comes at the ultimate price!
The Skulls
When a working-class college student is invited to join the secret society known as The Skulls, he thinks it’s a dream come true – until his roommate turns up dead.
The Skulls II
Secrets prove deadly when a Skulls member witnesses a brutal murder in the society’s chambers, and his own life is in jeopardy when he tries to expose the truth.
The Skulls III
A young, overachieving coed attempts to pledge the traditionally all-male Skulls, but her willingness to break their taboos will put the lives of everyone around her at risk.
For thoughts on The Skulls Trilogy, please check out our discussion on The Video Attic here.
Video Quality
These three titles are crammed onto a single Blu-Ray disc courtesy of Mill Creek Entertainment with ancient 1080p masters that result in some very unimpressive transfers. Not that any of these films particularly deserve a high quality transfer, but if you are going to take the time to release them each film should at least get their own disc. The compression artifacts present are quite unsightly to behold. The colors lack any sort of vibrancy to make any of the films pop, even in HD-ready settings with detailed production design. The three films somehow get worse in quality the newer the film gets, with The Skulls looking the strongest and The Skulls III looking the weakest. Skin tones look fairly natural, but the black levels are very problematic and blocky. The presentation is at its best during brightly lit daytime shots that are showing close-ups. Mill Creek Entertainment should have given these films much more room to breathe even if they had to stick with older transfers. These transfers are better than DVD quality, but not as much as you might hope.
Audio Quality
This new Blu-Ray set comes with lossless DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mixes for the three films that are better than the video presentation in terms of quality, but still not up to their full potential. The dialogue holds up decently well, coming though clearly without being stepped on by the music or sound effects. The environmental effects are unobtrusive but fairly noticeable in the presentation. These tracks do exhibit some instances of age related wear and tear and distortion, and you cannot help but feel that they could have been a bit more dynamic under different circumstances. The track rarely extends to the back channels and the subwoofer is likewise underutilized. Optional English subtitles are provided on this disc.
Special Features
There are no special features included on this disc.
Final Thoughts
These three thrillers range from decent to downright terrible. There are some very entertaining moments interspersed through these three stories, but none of the three ever make a case for being truly essential. The best that can be said is that Joshua Jackson and Paul Walker have some degree of charisma elevating the debut entry. Mill Creek Entertainment has crammed three films onto one Blu-Ray disc which does not do the A/V presentation any favors. If you are a fan of any of these films, this will probably be the only chance to own the last two on Blu-Ray.
The Skulls Trilogy is currently available to purchase on Blu-Ray.
Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.
Disclaimer: Mill Creek 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.
