Way Of The Wicked (DVD Review) - Image Entertainment

USA/2014
Directed By: Kevin Carraway
Written By: Matthew Robert Kelly
Starring: Vinnie Jones, Emily Tennant, Christian Slater
Color/92 Minutes/Not Rated
Region 1
Release Date: May 20, 2014

The Film
Five years after being blamed for the death of another child during a fight despite not laying a finger on the victim, Robbie returns to his old neighborhood to attend high school where he shares classes with his old friend Heather. Robbie and Heather quickly become friends again with Robbie filling the protector role where it may not be needed. His intentions with Heather are noble but his way of showing it may not be. Heather's father is a police official who teams up with a priest in an on-going investigation of a possible demonic force responsible for a series of murders surrounding Heather and Robbie.

WAY OF THE WICKED is as much a teen drama as it is a supernatural or crime thriller. Vinnie Jones and Emily Tennant are quite believable in their father-daughter lead roles, and Jake Croker sure has his angsty teen look down. Christian Slater is a bit hammy in his role as the priest but that is to be expected with present day Christian Slater. The movie isn't terrible it just suffers from the feeling that it is a rather restrained film, that could have been made for network TV or MTV. It also plays out as a boy's version of Carrie, without the good stuff that goes along with Carrie. So I guess that means it is a cheaper boy's version of the Carrie remake? Sure, we'll go with that. WAY OF THE WICKED isn't awful, but it's also far from anything special and you won't be missing anything noteworthy if you don't bother.

Oh and one last thing, a personal beef - Why the hell is Christian Slater plastered on the cover art? He's not in the movie that much and certainly Vinnie Jones has to be a better selling point than Christian Slater these days.

The Audio & Video
Image Entertainment's transfer of WAY OF THE WICKED on DVD largely looks very nice. The HD photography would really only look better if it was a Blu-ray presentation. As it stands, image quality is sharp, with the only real weak point being poor handling of black levels and dark sequences which have compression issues. The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track is a very good. Dialogue and music are mixed quite well and there are no background noise issues. 

The Extras
None to speak of

The Bottom Line
The film itself is totally predictable and only mildly interesting, which places it into rental territory. 

WAY OF THE WICKED is available HERE