Summary
- Director of
Immaculate
agrees that some scenes appear too dark in the movie’s VOD release. - Many movies suffer from low-light scenes on streaming platforms due to compression.
- Multiple versions of
Immaculate
across platforms emphasize clarity issues from individual streamers.
The director of Sydney Sweeney’s horror hit Immaculate has responded to one big complaint many fans have with the recent VOD release of the movie. Michael Mohan shared his opinion on the latest release of the movie via an X/Twitter user’s post complaining that the movie is “comically dark” and it is hard to see exactly what is happening in the film at some pivotal moments. As it turns out, the director completely agrees with the complaint, and is just as frustrated as viewers.
Immaculate
3.5/5
- Release Date
- March 22, 2024
- Director
- michael mohan
- Cast
- Sydney Sweeney , Simona Tabasco , Álvaro Morte , Benedetta Porcaroli , Dora Romano
- Writers
- Andrew Lobel
- Studio
- Black Bear, Fifty-Fifty Films, Lupin Film
While the debate over whether the theatrical experiences is better than home viewing continues to be a divisive subject, the complaints over Immaculate’s VOD release has raised one issue that supports the view that seeing a movie in cinemas is the only way to ensure audiences get the experience filmmakers intended. Immaculate received positive reviews when it was released earlier this year, and also became a reasonable success at the box office, thanks in part to the soaring popularity of its leading lady. However, its home video release has been slightly marred by the recurring complaint about how hard it is to see much of that is going on when watching in a room that is not completely dark.
In his comment on X, Mohan shared his disappointment at the VOD release of the movie, emphasising that it was beyond his control but certainly not something he wanted. He said:
“I know, man. This was absolutely not done intentionally. We have no control over the compression specs of each platform. It’s a real problem that truly bums me out, and after comparing them all, iTunes is the closest to what we wanted / brighter than the rest.”
Many Movies and TV Shows Suffer in Low-Light Scenes
The use of correct lighting in movies and TV shows is one of the most basic principles of filmmaking, but all the experience in the world cannot account for how streaming platforms and networks choose to format the footage for home viewing. When many audiences choose to watch platforms such as Netflix or Prime Video via phones, laptops and other smaller screened devices, the presentation of the videos are often compressed in a way that is done to save storage space and reduce latency over actual quality.
The degradation of dark scenes in movies and TV shows is nothing new, and the complaints around Immaculate are just the latest in a long list of projects to fall victim to streamer’s compression algorithms. Low-light scenes in The Batman, Game of Thrones, 2014’s Godzilla and many more have drawn criticism when being watched in a regularly lit room. This once again highlights the challenges the industry faces when trying to connect the intention of filmmakers with the way audiences generally chose to consume their output.
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Although there are ways around the issue, by making adjustments to screen settings and calibration, the very fact that, as Mohan pointed out, several platforms carry slightly different versions of Immaculate when it comes to the clarity, proves the issues come directly from the individual platforms and how they choose to present the footage supplied to them.
Immaculate
is currenty available on VOD services.
