Seven (1995)

William Somerset is due for retirement in seven days and he'll be glad to get away from the daily sickening sights he sees as a homicide detective. Together with David Mills, his pushy and eager replacement, they end up at a crime scene where an obese man has been murdered at his kitchen table whilst eating a bowl of spaghetti.

With no real motive to the crime the detectives head off to another murder scene where a rich banker has been murdered and 'Greed' written on the wall in his own blood. Getting one of those detective hunches, Somerset heads back to the previous crime scene to dig a little deeper, and behind the fridge and written in grease he finds the message 'Gluttony'.

There can only be one result - there's a serial killer on the loose who's murdering his victims by acting out one of the seven deadly sins. Unless he's stopped the police department can be guaranteed to find another five bodies as there's another five deadly sins in Sloth, Pride, Lust, Envy and Wrath.

With the film taking place either in dark and dingy rooms or in the murky cityscape drenched in near continuous rain, the picture is simply breathtaking. The dark and gloomy picture has a high bit-rate throughout the film and exhibits no signs of artifacting or outlining. Indeed, this picture must be one of the best yet to grace the silver disc with some brilliant colours and textures. Simply stunning!

The sound is just superb, with a huge bonus that Entertainment in Video have failed to push (or perhaps failed even to notice). Although the back of the case only indicates a Dolby Digital soundtrack it is far, far better than it. Further exploration of the sound menu indicates that it has a Dolby EX 5.1 and, more importantly, a DTS ES Discreet 6.1 soundtrack with the sound from the near field mix specifically created for the DVD.

The dialogue is crisp and crystal clear in the centre channel and, for what is essentially a dialogue intensive film, the other channels have not been neglected. The surround channels are hardly idle throughout the film with bag loads of ambient effects with the virtually continuous rain fall being especially evident in the rears. If you explore the extras disc you'll find an immensely interesting section on how the mastering for the home cinema was done - and I recommend a viewing as it shows the amount of time and effort put into the this disc.

If you thought that the film was good then the extras are even better. One of the most interesting sections on the second disc is the exploration of the opening sequence. Who would of thought that the simple opening credits could have been made so interesting? Not only is there a storyboard, but it is multi-angled so you can can compare the first design with the finished article.

However, it gets even better than that as you can listen to the soundtrack in standard stereo, Dolby Digital, DTS and even 96kHz 24bit stereo. Its the perfect opportunity to judge each soundtrack head to head and see why DTS is just that bit better. And still there's more! You can even listen to an Audio Commentary by the Designer and Audio engineer.

With so many soundtracks on the film, it is hardly surprising that there was insufficient room on just one disc for many extras. Fortunately, there is another disc which is positively bursting with extras.

Seven must be one of the most disturbing films since The Silence of the Lambs with no shock spared from the viewer. Along with some superb acting from the entire cast and some brilliant photography this disc is a package worthy of a place in your DVD collection. Buy it today!