There's an episode of Family Guy where it's revealed that Peter Griffin loves movies where the characters say the name of the movie. (Not only is this a funny idea, but there are some nice jokes which show how awkward it can be to work in the film's title.) Well, Peter would absolutely love Chain Letter, as the words "chain letter" are said about 100 times. However, the movie goes far beyond this to become the most literal movie of all time.

Chain Letter focuses on a group of high-school friends. While playing an on-line game, Neil (Cody Kasch) receiving a chain e-mail that warns if it isn't forwarded to five people, everyone will die. Neil sends the e-mail to his sister, Rachael (Cherilyn Wilson), and four of her friends -- Jessie (Nikki Reed), Dante (Noah Segan), Brian (Brian Tee), and Johnny (Matt Cohen). Of course, the teens find the e-mail to be a nuisance, and despite the warning, they all delete it. This all seems harmless until Johnny is brutally murdered by a maniac wielding lengths of chains. Detective Crenshaw (Keith David) gets involved in the investigation, but he's reluctantly to believe the story of the chain letter. Jessie begins to do some research and soon learns that chain letters and deaths are a common occurrence. However, with the curse already unleashed, is there any way to stop it?

Chain Letter is a movie where people get chain letters and if they ignore it, they get killed by chains. Get it? It's chains all around! What better way to kill those who won't forward your chain letter than by strangling or binding them with chains? That'll show 'em.

These events are made all the murkier by the movie's abrupt, non-sensical ending. The story is moving along at a decent pace, and suddenly an explanation is mumbled and the movie is over. It's almost as the production company suddenly ran out of money or film or ideas, because the movie just ends. It would be an understatement to say that the ending is unsatisfying, as we learn basically nothing. I don't have a huge problem with vague movies, but this goes far beyond an "ambiguous break up into small groups and talk about it ending". This is an "OK, we don't know how to end this, thanks for coming folks!" ending.

Up until the ending, Chain Letter hadn't been a great film, but it hadn't been a total train-wreck either. Director Deon Taylor gets a lot of mileage out of the film's reported $5 million budget, and along with a cast of semi-recognizable faces, the movie has a very nice look. The story doesn't work, but there are a few good jump scares, and it's nice to see some old-school gore (even if the first murder does go on too long). However, the vague story and rotten ending completely ruin the movie. While it wouldn't be 100% original, I like the idea of a curse chain letter and if the movie had gone with a supernatural story, it could have worked. What we get instead is an immediate answer as to why this movie played in Russia and Turkey and then turned up on home video here.

Chain Letter makes you realize that chains should only get so much screen-time on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of Image Entertainment. The film has been letterboxed at 1.78:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 19 Mbps. The image is very sharp and clear, showing no grain and no defects from the source material. Again for a low-budget film, we get a very clear picture here. Some scenes are a tad dark, but the colors look good. The image has fairly good depth and detail. The Disc carries a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 2.5 Mbps. The track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. Despite the relatively low bit-rate, this track provides good sound. The surround sound effects are very good, most notably in a scene during the finale when Jessie has a realization and we keep hearing the same word repeated over and over in the rear speakers. The bass effects are nicely done and the subwoofer provided some wall-shaking effects.

The only extra on the Chain Letter Blu-ray Disc is the TRAILER for the film.