Controversial Blus: Dagon But Not Daforgotten by Vestron (DVD/ Blu-ray Comparison)

Wow, I google'd my title and I can't believe nobody used that terrible pun before me - woohoo!  Unfortunately, that's the end of the good news for today.  Well, maybe not entirely.  But yesterday's post was "Controversial Blus" with a question mark, but today's is with an exclamation point.  Vestron Video's long-awaited release of Stuart Gordon's passion project, Dagon, hits stores tomorrow, and it's not looking as good as we'd hoped.
2002 US Lions Gate DVD top; 2018 US Vestron blu bottom.
Old school Fangoria will remember Gordon was meant to be releasing his third HP Lovecraft adaptation, then titled Shadow Over Innsmouth, for years and years.  Originally written in 1985, it floated from Empire Pictures to Full Moon, great effects artists like David Allen and Dick Smith were attached to it at different times.  They released ads and concept art, first as it was coming, and then in articles about how it never came to be.  Click this link for a taste; I think you'll appreciate it.  But it all fell apart.  But when Brian Yuzna went to Spain and started to find success with his Fantastic Factory, he told Gordon he thought he could finally get it made.  So together, in 2001, they did.  And apart from some unfortunate early generation CGI, it's everything fans always hoped it would be - another thrilling, zealous Lovecraft excursion reuniting the gang: Gordon, Yuzna, Dennis Paoli and, well, some guy who at least resembled Jeffrey Combs enough that fans could pretend.
2002 US Lions Gate DVD top; 2018 US Vestron blu bottom.
Of their three adaptations together, Dagon feels the most Lovecraftian.  It's the story of a young couple who find themselves in an old Spanish fishing village that secretly worships an ancient undersea god.  And it's changed them.  There's a little less humor, especially compared to Re-Animator, which might largely be down to the fact where they're working with a Spanish cast for whom English is a second language at best.  The horror and atmosphere are here in spades, the concept is really cool, and again, apart from some early CGI, the effects are really good, with cool monsters and gruesome gore.  But the basic human scenes, the humor and the drama between the characters, is just not on the same level.  The lead is fine, but you don't really care if he truly loves his girlfriend or this woman he meets, or what any of them feel about anything really.  You just want to watch the plot unfold, which it does, in a pretty satisfactory and entertaining way.  But whatever themes they're trying to set up when they have this big argument early in the film where Ezra Godden can't stop worrying about his company's stocks, and Raquel Meroño is screaming at him... is that all supposed to relate to where the characters wind up at the end somehow, is Godden meant to be learning a lesson, facing a truth or growing somehow?  Do their personalities even matter at all?  Herbert West's personality was the crown jewel of Re-Animator.  Here, it just feels like we're watching a procession of "stuff that happens."  Awesome stuff, but just stuff.
2002 US Lions Gate DVD top; 2018 US Vestron blu bottom.
So, Dagon first came out on DVD from Lions Gate in 2003 with two commentaries, but not much else.  It was released in other regions with other extras, like interviews and EPK stuff; but they lacked the commentaries.  Plus, some weren't entirely English friendly, so the US DVD was the way to go; but it left you hungry for more.  So we waited for a blu-ray... and waited and waited.  There was a German blu, but it's cut, so that rules that out.  Finally, Umbrella announced a blu in Australia and Vestron announced their new special edition, which would hopefully be the ultimate edition.  But if it is, it's only be default.
2002 US Lions Gate DVD top; 2018 US Vestron blu bottom.
So let's talk about this.  You'll notice I've been including extra comparisons throughout this review because there's a lot to digest.  Let's start with the easy part.  Both the DVD and blu are framed at 1.78:1, but what's actually in those frames has shifted a bunch.  For the most part, the blu reveals a bit more on the sides, and more on the bottom, but shifts shot to shot.  Just taking the two comparisons directly above, the the blu has more on the bottom in the first set, and more on the top in the second top.  Almost all of this movie seems to have been shot with a handheld steadycam, so it's always moving and bobbing, so it's hard to really settle on a preferred framing... they're just different.
2002 US Lions Gate DVD top; 2018 US Vestron blu bottom.
also, see what I mean about the cool practical but terrible CGI effects?
Anyway, who cares when the real issues are staring us in the face.  Vestron seems to have an attitude of "why make a new HD master when we've got this old one just waiting for someone to blow the dust off of it?"  Now, this clearly isn't the same old master the used for the DVD; but it's also clearly not up the latest standards.  This is no impressive 4k scan that isolates every single little dot of grain.  In fact, the blu has less grain than the DVD did?  They've clearly used DNR or some similar process to scrub it.  In some scenes it's passable, in others it's really not.  Again, that's why I'm including more comparisons for you guys to judge.  But look at that last comparison - yee gods, that's awful.  And the colors!  You can see in every set of shots they've made big changes... Who's to say which disc's colors are more accurate, though, right?  In the first comparison, of the characters in the church, the blu actually looks better.  But now look at Ezra's bizarrely neon lips in that of him in the stairwell.  That just has to be wrong.  And in that last shot of the mouth tentacles, the entire left half of the picture has been lost to black crush (though maybe that's a deliberate choice to mask the pasted on look of the CGI?  In that sense, it is a bit of an improvement, actually).  And from what people are saying, all this DNR and stuff is on the Umbrella disc, too; which tells me the awful tinkering is inherent to the old master they're using.  This film really needed a new scan.

Audio-wise, it's a simpler situation.  Both discs only have the 5.1 mix, with the blu now in lossless DTS-HD.  And both have English and Spanish subtitles.
And in the special features department, it's an even happier story.  First, all the old stuff is here.  Both the DVD commentaries, one with Gordon and Godden and one with Gordon and Paoli, the latter of which is particularly good.  And the trailer and both stills galleries from the old DVD are here, too.  And those additional interviews and stuff from the foreign DVDs?  We get those, too!  There's a twenty minute collection of on-set interviews (some in Spanish, with subtitles), including Gordon, Godden, Meroño and producer Julio Fernandez, followed by some B-roll footage.  And there's the "vintage EPK featurette," but it isn't your standard five-minute thing filled with mostly film clips.  It's just under half an hour long and talks to just about everybody.  And then there's three new on-camera interviews by Red Shirt.  One with Brian Yuzna, one which is really a conversation between Gordon and Mick Garris, and a really cool one with a Lovecraft expert, who delves into the differences between the film and the original story, etc.  And, as always, Vestron's blu comes in their signature style slip cover.  I really kinda hate their artwork for this picture, though.  Oh well.
2002 US Lions Gate DVD top; 2018 US Vestron blu bottom.
So, what's the bottom line?  Well, the controversy's authentic, all the criticisms are legit.  But there really aren't any better alternatives, and it's definitely a cool ass movie horror fans will want to have in their collections.  I mean, I can see people cancelling their preorders on this one, but what're you gonna do?  No Dagon in your life?  I guess the question, then, has to be: which is better, the DVD or the blu?  And I have to say the blu.  Not in every single shot.  At its worst moments, like Ezra going up the stairs, the DVD actually really does look better than the blu-ray.  But overall, in 2018 on your big screen TV, you're probably going to enjoy watching the blu a smidgen bit more.  And the extras package is awesome - for that reason alone, I'd double-dip.  It's just, ugh, so disappointing, especially given how long we have to wait between Vestron releases.  They obviously weren't spending all that time making this edition look as good as they possibly could.  Like Code Red's The Carrier, it's a deeply flawed release that I'd still buy if I had it all to do over again, but it's a poor show from the label.

3 comments:

  1. I was lucky enough to catch the film theatrically, and I can confirm the 35mm prints were darker than the DVD -- creating an experience that was a bit more forgiving on the CGI. When I got the disc, I immediately felt it was too bright and flattened out the moody cinematography.

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  2. Try tracking down the Australian Blu ray. It is region free and has had no DNR applied.

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    1. Unfortunately, the Australian blu (Umbrella) actually seems to have the same DNR issues.

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