The Tricky Case Of Cronenberg's Scanners

It's time to look at another classic.  How about David Cronenberg's Scanners?  It's had a troubled history on DVD, thanks primarily to an early botch job from MGM, and has often been one of those titles best imported by those in the know.  But now that The Criterion Collection's taken it over for its HD restoration, is that still the case?  Well, actually...

Scanners has always been the biggest and most well received of Cronenberg's original sci-fi/ horror run until he really cracked the mainstream with The Fly, but it's always had the weakest impact on me.  Compared to the psycho-biological mind fucks of his masterpieces like Shivers, Rabid, The Brood and Videodrome, Scanners feels like a very conventional B-movie thriller.  The kind of thing Michael Caine has made twenty or thirty of, and you could catch them all on cable TV in the 90s.  It's a dry story of industrial espionage between two drug processing corporations with a little bit of very straight-forward ESP thrown in.  I guess, superficially, part of the appeal was just seeing Cronenberg working with slightly higher budgets and production appeal.  This one's got helicopters, exploding gas stations and car chases... you'd never see a bus drive through an operating record store in one of Cronenberg's earlier films.  And certainly, the infamous head explosion scene is one heck of a memorable scene.

But I'd keep returning to this film, only because I'd tell myself there has to be more to it than that.  And to some degree, I'm still puzzling it out, but watching these latest blu-rays has illuminated it for me at least partially.  For one thing, I used to think of star Stephen Lack's performance as very wooden, a shortcoming Scanners has always had to work around.  But now I've come to appreciate it as an asset, a curious but deliberate melancholy kind of state, obviously meant to show the character is almost consistently drugged and/ or dealing with severe internal conflict.  It's such a polar opposite to Michael Ironside's performance, who really knows how to make a low budget role shine, but in a way that's the point.  And the more I think about it, I like that our characters are rather cynically portrayed as unwitting pawns between ConSec and BioCarbon Amalgate.  No matter who double-crosses who, they all live and die under the treads of the great corporate machines.

Scanners III: The Takeover

And if you need a demonstration of how masterfully superior Cronenberg's film is to its direct-to-video thriller peers, just watch any of the Scanners sequels.  They're not terrible, but that only makes it all the more impressive that they're clearly playing on such different levels.  Then throw in Howard Shore's wild score, which swings broadly between dramatically operatic and jazzy sci-fi clanging, plus all of Cronenberg's inspired little touches, like Robert Silverman's artwork or the eye on Ironside's bandage, and you've got a film that doesn't seems like it should be placid on paper, but mysteriously keeps you riveted throughout.  It's a tricky one.

Scanners first came out on DVD in 2001 from MGM.  It was anamorphic widescreen but barebones, and had another problem we'll come to later.  So fans were chomping at the bit by the time Anchor Bay UK came out with their special edition in 2005.  It held us over, anyway, until it was time for a proper blu-ray.  That debuted in Germany from Koch in 2011, but it was barebones and I think most of us were holding out for the 2k restoration, which was released in 2013 by Umbrella in Australia, Subkultur (and later Wicked Vision) in Germany and Second Sight in the UK.  We finally got it here in the US in 2014, courtesy of Criterion, which also included Cronenberg's 1969 short film Stereo as a bonus.

1) 2001 US MGM DVD; 2) 2005 UK AB DVD; 3) 2013 UK SS BD;
4) 2014 US Criterion DVD; 5) 2014 US Criterion BD.

So Criterion and Second Sight's blus are sourced from the same 2k restoration from the 35mm interpositive, but the final results sure aren't the same.  But let's take these in order.  MGM's initial DVD is anamorphic and all around pretty respectable for 2001.  You'll notice it has some odd boxing in the overscan area, matting three of four sides, resulting in a slightly odd 1.87:1 aspect ratio.  Anchor Bay shifted the framing a bit, windowboxing it completely to 1.82:1, but still revealing a bit more vertical information while cropping the right just slightly.  Then the blu-rays open it up slightly to 1.78:1, though again, it's worth noting that they're not identically framed, with the Criterion pointing noticeably lower than Second Sight, which includes more image along the top.

But the framing is just the beginning of Scanners' story.  I have no real preference for the slightly higher or lower framing, but Second Sight pulls ahead in two key areas.  One is more subjective.  This is another case of the ol' Criterion greens, and that sort of works for that first set of shots where they're in the funky train station lights.  But everywhere else, it just looks darker and less natural than the Second Sight timing to my eyes.  Although you could argue that Second Sight's whites are a little too bright.  More objectively, then, is the compression.  Look at Stephen Lack's cheek in the shots directly above.  The grain is and full of macro-blocking and pixelation on the Criterion, while it's all naturally captured and faithful to the source on the Second Sight disc.

So I called the MGM DVD "pretty respectable," but I was talking specifically about the PQ.  In terms of the audio, it's got a big flaw, and a surprising one for a major studio MGM disc: it's out of sync.  It's not way out of sync, but it's bad enough that every layman's gonna notice it.  They also had Spanish and French subs and a French dub, but when the original language track is borked, who cares?  When Anchor Bay came along, it was a very welcome upgrade, just by virtue of fixing the sync.  They also added additional 5.1 remixes and optional English subs, so at the time, it was a pretty sweet deal.

But of course now in the age of HD, we can forget all that and just look at the blus, both of which give us the original track in restored, lossless LPCM.  Second Sight also throws in a 5.1 mix in DTS-HD, and they both include optional English subtitles.

dueling Lack interviews.

Another bummer about the MGM DVD was that it was completely barebones, apart from a fullscreen trailer.  Anchor Bay didn't exactly turn it into a packed special edition, but they did include a brief featurette where critic Alan Jones gives a brief run-through of the story behind Scanners.  Better still, they included the complete David Cronenberg episode of that documentary series, The Directors.  Those have been released on DVD on their own, and often wound up as extras on special editions, but if you didn't already have it, these are nice little retrospectives with a lot of good interview subjects.   They also had the trailer, a photo gallery and bonus trailers for Scanners 2 & 3 and The Brood.

The really good stuff comes, though, when you get to the blu-rays.  Both Second Sight and Criterion have created a proper set of original Scanners special features, and it's all unique stuff.  Second Sight gives us a series of five excellent on-camera interviews with the eccentric Stephen Lack (who also shows us his art), cinematographer Mark Irwin, who's pretty funny, executive producer Pierre David, effects artist Stephan Dupuis and a short but compelling one with co-star Lawrence Dane.  Then Criterion has The Scanners Way, a featurette with special effects artists Dupuis, Chris Walas, Gary Zeller, and a few brief comments by Rick Baker on behalf of Dick Smith.  They also have a Stephen Lack interview which covers a lot of the same ground as Second Sight's, a great interview with Michael Ironside (he was suited for the role because he's had real life experience with psychic powers!), and a vintage television interview with Cronenberg, which is fun but more than a little hammy.  Criterion also has the trailer, 3 Radio Spots, and a fold-out insert with notes by Kim Newman.

One Criterion extra stands out, however: Cronenberg's early short film, Stereo from 1969.  It's an early, experimental work, barely feature-length (63 minutes) and silent, except for post-production narration, so don't get too excited.  But it's still an interesting piece that sees Cronenberg working very creatively with a lot of ideas and themes featured in some of his more mainstream film, including Scanners.  It documents a series of experiments by The Canadian Academy of Erotic Inquiry to put a bunch of telepaths together and see how they evolve.  Or something.  It's a little confusing and undeniably Cronenbergian.  But this isn't Stereo's first time at the rodeo.  Blue Underground released it as a bonus on their Fast Company DVD in 2004 (the limited edition 2-disc version only) and their blu-ray re-release in 2009[left].  Alliance also included it as an extra on their FC DVD in 2005, and most recently Arrow included it as in their 2015 2-disc set of Videodrome.  But there was a reason to be excited about Criterion's inclusion.

1) US 2009 BU BD; 2) US 2014 Criterion DVD; 3) US 2014 Criterion BD.

Criterion's transfer was created from a new 2k scan from a 35mm composite fine-grain element (and for those wondering, yes, Arrow's 2015 BD used Criterion's same restoration).  The result is that even the Criterion DVD is preferable to the Blue Underground blu.  The aspect ratio is almost the same, going from 1.66:1 to 1.67, though the new scan does reveal a bit more around the edges.  The grain is a bit sporadic on Criterion's blu, but it's mostly there, which is plenty more than you can say for Blue Underground's smoothed over, soft transfer.  Pretty sure they've just upscaled their SD transfer, which is better than leaving it in SD like Warner Bros likes to do, but it makes it even easier to notice their haloing and artifacting that surrounds every little detail.  So it really is a much more impressive presentation.  But it's worth noting neither release offers English subtitles - if you need those, you've got to cop Arrow's release.

Both sets of extras are pretty great, and have some good unique stuff.  A lot of it's redundant, too, though - everybody wants to tell the shotgun anecdote, so you're going to hear that over and over until you're sick of it, even on just one disc.  It's up to you if you're a big enough fan to splurge for both copies to have the full set of extras, or if one disc'll do ya.  But if you're just getting one, yeah, I'd recommend the Second Sight.

Depraved: Larry Fessenden Returns To the Frankenstein Legend

Not to be too snarky, but for me, the "IFC Midnight" series is usually the zero interest arm of Scream Factory; but when there's a new Larry Fessenden film, I pay attention.  Depraved is Fessenden's latest film, having run through 2019 in festivals and limited screenings, and finally becoming accessible on home video now with this BD/ DVD combo pack.  But if that felt like an interminable wait, you can imagine what it's been like for Fessenden himself who's been struggling to get his modern Frankenstein story funded and on screen for the last full decade.  If he can persevere through all of that, then the time I spent refreshing Glass Eye Pix's Twitter feed pining for a physical media release date doesn't seem so toughly endured.

I was a little surprised when I first heard of this project - hadn't we already gotten Fessenden's modern Frankenstein story in 1991 with No Telling (The Frankenstein Complex)?  That was already quite excellent itself.  But I guess it didn't quite scratch that itch.  And certainly, as much as they both adhere to the same, rough skeletal structure as Mary Shelley's novel (an obsessive medical scientist manages to bring back the dead through secret, hand-wrought experiments that wind up causing unexpected, tragic and ultimately deadly consequences), they've risen from the slab as distinctly different creatures.  For one thing, No Telling dictates the events from the scientist's perspective, while Depraved (mostly) shows us the world from the monster's point of view.

The result is a more sensitive film.  The creature's story has famously been as heartbreaking as it is scary.  That's pretty much what Frankenstein's best known for.  But this one really leans into the bonds developed between Adam and his maker... heck the centerpiece of Depraved is a five minute tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (which let an indie horror crew shoot all over the place?!) where he's taught the history and nature of humanity.  Relative newcomer Alex Breaux in particular gives an award-worthy performance that perfectly suits the mood piece Fessenden is building around him.  Everything you expect from Fessenden is here, from his masterful use of original music to his eccentric animations.  He possibly gets a little too distracted filling the frame with homages to everything from James Whale's classic to Cronenberg's The Fly, but it's never so much that it detracts from what might sincerely be Fessenden's best film yet.

2020 Scream Factory DVD top; 2020 Scream Factory BD bottom.

Depraved is presented in 2.35:1 on both discs.  This film was shot digitally, so that film grain you see is "fake," an effect added in post.  But we can still use it to observe the difference in resolution between the DVD and blu.  And you can see how it's crisp and clear on the blu, but smudgy and sporadic on the DVD.  More practically, the biggest difference you'll notice is just that the fine details and edges have a softer look.  Of course the colors, brightness levels and everything else are the same, since its the same master just put on two different resolution discs.  Curiously, though, they've included two audio mixes for the film: a 5.1 surround and a 2.0 stereo track (both are DTS-HD on the blu).  I'm not sure what the purpose of the stereo track is since it's not a previous mix, and 5.1s naturally down-mix on stereo TVs, but okay, I'll take it.  Optional English and Spanish subtitles are also included.

One thing you can count on, Fessenden + Scream Factory = a fantastic collection of special features, and this is no exception.  We start out with a director's commentary.  He flies on solo on this one, but he doesn't need any help to fill the entire running time with thoughtful insight and fascinating backstory.  There are a few pauses, but they feel like technical edits rather than lapses, and they never last too long.  Then there's a feature length documentary, which if you've seen past Fessenden special editions, you know take you quite thoroughly through every step of production, from conception to premiere.  These aren't just EPK talking heads and a little B-roll; they're fascinatingly candid watches even if you had no interest in the actual feature film.  In fact, this doc has had some theatrical screenings of its own.  After that, there are featurettes that interview Fessenden (good, but a lot of it's redundant after the doc and commentary), the special effects team, Breaux and other crew members.  They basically just serve as extra little addendums to the main doc, which is all good.  There's also the trailer, and a full-color 8-page booklet of photos.

So this is an easy recommendation.  It's a great film.  If Beneath had you wary of blind-buying a Fessenden film, don't worry, this is a return to his top shelf material.  And Scream Factory has delivered a first class special edition just as deep and rewarding as their previous collaborations.  Ever since the Larry Fessenden Collection in 2015, his work as been ideally preserved on home video, and this additional chapter slides right in perfectly.  I wish this was the case for most other filmmakers, but I'm certainly grateful in this case.

The Latest Chapter of H.P. Lovecraft's Necronomicon

Here's one I've been eagerly anticipating!  Necronomicon is a severely under-appreciated 1993 horror anthology based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft, produced and partially directed by Brian Yuzna.  It's struggled long and hard to find its way to us, as you'll see, but Germany's Wicked Vision is finally getting their new 3-disc (blu-ray/ DVD + bonus disc combo pack) edition into fans' hands around the world.  It's a mediabook, which is fitting for a film named after one of the most infamous books of all time.

Yuzna's work seems to be going through a bit of a revival lately, with fresh fans discovering the demented brilliance of films like Society and Return Of the Living Dead 3.  And Necronomicon is one of his absolute best.  The idea here was to create a more international flavor, so this ambitious anthology features a French segment directed by Cristophe Gans (Crying Freeman) and a Japanese segment by Shûsuke Kaneko (the Gamera and Death Note films) in addition to his American one.  These guys add a slightly artier, more stylized feel to Yuzna's fun, gory romp, creating a collaboration somewhat reminiscent of his work with Stuart Gordon.  It's a great blend, especially with the Lovecraft source material as well.  It's got a great little cast, including Richard Lynch, Bruce Payne, David Warner and Return Of the Living Dead's Don Calfa, plus a whole bunch of wild, practical effects.  Jeffrey Combs even appears in the wrap-around (also directed by Yuzna) to play Lovecraft himself, sporting a fake chin that gives him a surprising resemblance to Bruce Campbell.

I remember desperately trying to track down a copy of a crappy, fullscreen DVD of Necronomicon from Brazil.  And then I remember how happy I was when I could give up the search in 2004 because Metropolitan came out with a stunning, widescreen 2-disc special edition in France.  Plenty of much bigger and better known horror films weren't getting releases that nice from major studios in the US.  That DVD was all you needed to know about Necronomicon through the whole SD era.  Then ten years later, Metropolitan turned their one and only DVD release into a one and only blu-ray.  But something's finally come along to dethrone it: the new, 2019 3-disc mediabook release from Wicked-Vision.  First announced back in 2016 for a 2017 release, it's obviously run into a few hurdles along the way, but it's finally here.

One of those hurdles actually came after the film's release, when it turned out the blu-ray had a mastering error.  So everyone who had this pre-ordered got a bum disc.  But full credit to WV, they jumped on it quick and started a replacement program and have already issued corrected versions to stores.  Those who ordered it direct from the label were automatically issued a replacement, and everyone else can fill out a form for a free one here.  If you bought this and aren't sure if you've got the faulty or corrected disc, it's easy to tell the difference, as you can see in the photo above.  That's the original faulty disc on the left with the blue and red tentacles, and the corrected version on the right, with the purple and green. 

1) 2004 French Metropolitan DVD; 2) 2019 German Wicked Vision DVD;
3) 2019 German Wicked Vision BD.

So, we're obviously looking at the same master here; the new release hasn't changed anything in that regard.  Metropolitan and Wicked Vision even share the same wonky pillarboxing that shifts from shot to shot in the overscan area... notice how it's all on the right in the first set of shots, then split thinner onto both sides in the second?  The film is essentially presented as 1.78:1, but usually hovers around 1.76:1.  Otherwise though, for an older master, it holds up on a modern blu fairly well.  Grain is a little patchy and a little digital-looking, the exact sort of thing a 2 or 4k remaster would fix up nicely; but I've seen plenty of newer blus looking worse.  So as long as you're not expecting anything cutting edge, you should be pretty happy.  The two DVDs look nearly identical, though WV's has a ever so slightly more contrast, and the HD blu genuinely does reveal more fine detail that you couldn't make out in SD.

So if they're virtually identical, what makes Wicked Vision's release superior?  Well, to start with, the Metropolitan DVD had forced French subtitles when you played the English audio track (it includes both the original English and a French dub, both in 5.1).  I believe they did fix that on their blu (and bump both tracks up to DTS-HD), but the subs are still forced on many of the special features.  Also, neither Metropolitan disc has English subtitle options.  Wicked Vision, on the other hand, has the same English 5.1 mix, with an German stereo mix instead of the French dub (both in DTS-HD on the blu) and this time, Both German and English subtitles are optional on the film and the extras.   So that already puts it in the lead, but the best is yet to come.

As great as it was to see Necronomicon restored to widescreen, the biggest surprise of Metropolitan's release was that it was packed with extras.  There aren't a lot of fully loaded, completely exclusive special editions in France, but here was one.  For starters, there's a lively audio commentary by Christophe Gans and Brian Yuzna.  Then there's an hour long documentary that's packed with great behind-the-scenes footage, deleted scenes and some surprisingly funny anecdotes.  That's followed up by five more featurettes, which are basically just like another hour's worth of documentary broken up into smaller bits.  But it does bring in some more people, like composer Joseph LoDuca and the other international producers.  Then there's also a vintage promo featurette, the trailer, two galleries (including one that shows a full set of storyboards for a deleted fourth segment!), and a 12-page booklet (in French).  It also has a pretty sweet easter egg: Gans' student 15-minute student film called The Silver Slime.  It's all style and no substance, and in some ways feels as clunky as you'd expect a student film to be, but it's got a great look and pays homage to Mario Bava.  Metropolitan also added the complete soundtrack as another extra on their BD.

The Silver Slime

And Wicked Vision?  They carry over everything from the French releases, except unfortunately, for that easter egg.  But they make up for it by creating a bunch of new special features.  For starters, we get a brand new, hour long(!) interview with Brian Yuzna.  Actually, that's the least valuable, only because he mostly just repeats what he says in the previous features, often verbatim.  There's also a fun new, on-camera interview with effects artist Steve Johnson, who only worked on one quick effects scene on the film, so he talks about that for three minutes and spends the rest of the time chatting about the nature of physical vs. CGI effects, etc.  The best of the new interviews, then, is screenwriter Brent V. Friedman, who's an important voice who'd been left out of the original French features.  There's a second audio commentary by two German experts, too, but that's the only thing that isn't English friendly on their discs.  They've also added a couple additional trailers, which is nice, a bonus trailer for Highway To Hell (that annoyingly plays on start-up) and their book is 24-pages (in German).  It's also worth noting that Wicked Vision's mediabook comes in three variant covers, each limited to 333 copies.  Mine, shown above, is cover B.  And they're planning to release a standard edition, but that'll be a single disc release, minus most of the extras, including the doc, which was easily the best feature.

So, I do kinda miss The Silver Slime, but overall, Wicked Vision's is a more flush and satisfying edition that's also free of those pesky French subs.  Yeah, it's the same transfer, so if you already have the French blu and aren't fussed about extras (the DVD had forced subs on the film, but the BD only has 'em on some of the special features), it may not be worth double-dipping.  But if you're picking up the film for the first time, the Wicked Vision is the one to get.  It's also region free, which is more than can be said for the B-locked Metropolitan.

A Pair of Vinegar Syndromes #2: Deathrow Gameshow.... The Only Way To Go

Released in the same DVD bundle as Code Red's Spaghetti Cinema and Six Pack #3 is the long-awaited special edition of Deathrow Gameshow, by writer/ director Mark Pirro. Known for getting 8mm horror comedies like A Polish Vampire In Burbank and Nudist Colony of the Dead distributed wide on cable and VHS, I believe Gameshow is the most mainstream and biggest budgeted of his films. It was 35mm with a theatrical run, was a big seller in the early days of VHS and I can certainly attest to the fact that it played a whole ton on late night HBO and Cinemax back in the 80s. I used to stay up all night to watch it as a kid, until I got savvy enough to tape it.

Update 1/3/15 - 1/4/20: You may've guessed this was coming after Psychos In Love yesterday, since it's the only film with a VS update that was still missing.  It might've hurt them to release this as a double-dip so quickly after fans had waited so long for Code Red's special edition.  That's certainly why I didn't jump on it right away.  But we're covering it here now, as we near the end of our update blitz.

So nostalgia definitely drove my excitement when I heard Code Red was planning a special edition for this release. It blew my mind that there would even be a special edition for this, and I couldn't wait to see if its outrageous humor would hold up as a grown-up. The basic premise is that death row inmates are given the option to appear on a network game show to win prizes in exchange for getting killed in silly games on national television. After a contestant at the beginning of the film fails to answer a trivia question to win a pardon, it's off to the guillotine - BUT, his family can still win a big cash prize if his head lands face up in the basket. It's kitsch, trashy, juvenile and loaded with enough jokes to rival a Zucker brothers film. As you can imagine, most of them are real groaners, but I have to say that some of are genuinely clever.

And yeah, there is an actual plot to the film. The host, who also happens to be a sexist heel, accidentally kills a big time mafia boss on his show. He appears on a talk show to debate the morality of his show with a beautiful feminist, and they wind up on the run from a crazed hitman played by character actor Beano. The film does a good job of keeping the predictable plot moving at a good pace, and never veering too far from the crazy game show itself, which after all is the draw of the film. It absolutely adheres to film rule #1: don't be boring. In some ways, the exaggerated cartoonish elements (for example, when the mob boss calls, the phone shakes and smoke comes out of it) remind me of early Raimi films, like Crimewave, only with more nudity. But between times changing in comedy and the audience becoming adult, the whole conceit of the show doesn't seem as delightfully demented as it did in the 80s, which once had me telling incredulous kids at school "you can't believe what I actually saw in a movie!" But it's still fun and very, very 80s, with an unforgettable theme song.

One last thing I have to address is the newer, director's cut of this film.  No deleted scenes or anything have been restored to the film, but if you listen to the audio commentary, you'll hear Pirro repeatedly identifying digital changes he made. He "Lucas'd it," he admits, pointing out how he added things like blood to the guillotine blade, and funny on-screen logos to a commercial that plays within the film. Blood and logos that the viewer never sees, because while the commentators are clearly watching this second version, we're watching the original theatrical version without those changes.  Until this latest release, you could only see the altered version if you ordered it specifically from the filmmaker's website... which is fine, since nobody wants CGI blood in their movies even when it was made like that in the first place. "Lucasing" a movie is pretty much universally acknowledged as a bad thing, and I gotta say, the added effects aren't exactly seamless.  But Pirro seems to prefer it, so for the curious, Vinegar Syndrome has finally made the special edition more accessible by including it as an extra on their release.  So now everybody wins because we can have both.

Original left, retouched version on the right.

Anyway, it took so long for Code Red to deliver the film after announcing it that I started searching around, and realized that it was included as a bonus film with another Crown International DVD release released in 2008 by BCI Eclipse, The Kidnapping Of the American President. I was expecting a junk-o VHS-sourced print, but amazingly it turned out to be a nice, anamorphic widescreen print. That DVD is now out of print, and going for outrageous prices on Amazon. I was actually able to rent it from Netflix, but now they no longer carry it. That same print turned up again in 2010, anyway, in a 12 film, 3 disc set (they're double-sided) from Rare Cult Cinema from Mill Creek Entertainment. That one's compelling as it sells for very cheap (about $6 new on Amazon, not even counting third party sellers).  It was great to have something to tide us over as Code Red's release got pushed back again and again.  But it finally came out in December 2014, and that was great have to tide us over until Vinegar Syndrome restored the film from its original negatives and released Deathrow Gameshow on blu in 2016.

1) 2010 Mill Creek DVD; 2) 2014 Code Red DVD; 3) 2016 VS DC DVD;
4) 2016 VS DVD; 5) 2016 VS DC BD; 6) 2016 VS BD.

So the Code Red and Mill Creek DVDs are virtually, but not 100%, identical.  Both have a lot of digital noise and are ever so slightly pinched and pillarboxed to 1.75:1, clearly utilizing the same master; but CR's colors are a smidgen richer.  Code Red had the edge already, anyway, because there is one clear difference between the two prints. After the closing credits, the film comes back with one more shot - a stinger.  Well, the Code Red's stinger is complete, but the Mill Creek one only shows a fraction, before chopping the actor's line mid-sentence, and cutting to the Mill Creek logo.

Of course, VS's restoration has far more than an edge.  The film is now matted to 1.85:1, and yet manages to unveil more information along all four sides.  The colors have been corrected and are cooler and more distinct (for example, the secretary's blouse is truly white).  Small detail is much clearer (we can finally read those post-it notes all over the walls), and a nasty collection of compression artifacts that've grown all over previous editions like mold has finally been cleared away.  Oh, and finally I have to point out that the Vinegar Syndrome's release is a DVD/ blu-ray combo pack; and they've continued their strange tradition of making their DVD actually open matte at 1.78:1, revealing even more vertical information than the blu.

And how about that director's cut (DC)?  Well, it fixes the DVDs' pinched aspect ratio slightly to 1.79:1, leaving just a single sliver of a vertical matte, but also zooms in on the picture ever so slightly.  It has slightly duller colors, with a bit more of a dusky red hue over the image.  The image is even softer with some unfortunate edge enhancement or something muddying the image, like this is a copy of a copy (which it probably is).  But the real problem is that it botches the frame rate, regularly double-printing some frames while interlacing - then correcting - others, creating ghosting effects and giving motion and panning a stilted jittery effect.  Putting aside any question of whether the film is improved or hampered by the creative changes made to the film, it's objectively the worst transfer of them all.

Every version just includes a simple mono track in 2.0, but it's now in lossless DTS-HD on the blu (though it's still lossy on the director's cut).  Vinegar Syndrome has also included optional English subtitles for the very first time.

But where Code Red really triumphed was in the extras. None of those old BCI or Mill Creek editions have any extras at all, not even a trailer. But Code Red has the trailer (plus the usual CR bonus trailers), and a whole lot more. First of all, the film has a very informative and engaging audio commentary by Pirro, stars John McCafferty & Robyn Blythe and co-writer Alan Gries, who mostly works as moderator. It's very upbeat, but not afraid to get critical and never lulls. Then, there's a great retrospective documentary called Revisiting Deathrow Gameshow, which features all the lead actors (except, unfortunately, Beano), lots of the crew and even the former VP of Crown International Pictures. It's over half an hour long and is a very fun look back on the shooting. And finally there's an old self-made documentary film by Pirro called Mimi Motion Picture Making from 1994. It's a 49-minute retrospective on Pirro's career discussing all of his films (including a segment on Deathrow Gameshow) with even more interviews and behind-the-scenes footage. All together, it's a wonderful retrospective you're sure to enjoy even if you didn't particularly care for the movie itself.

And Vinegar Syndrome?  They've carried over almost all of the wonderful Code Red stuff, except Mimi Motion Picture Making seems to have been just too much to fit onto a single disc.  That's because they've used that space to instead include two of Pirro's early short films.  Buns, from 1978, is a silly horror spoof about a maniac who only kills people who eat hamburgers, and stars Pirro himself and McCafferty in a smaller role.  And 1979's The Spy Who Did It Better is a 45-minute James Bond parody with McCafferty in the lead role, where the director has unfortunately added some more of his digital revisions.  These are distracting but never intrusive enough to spoil the fun.  VS also adds a brief director's introduction, TV spot, photo gallery, and includes reversible artwork.

Naturally, Vinegar Syndrome's is the decisive, definitive edition.  One thing the Rare Cult Cinema pack does have going for it, though, is that it also includes Pirro's My Mom's a Werewolf, which he wrote but didn't direct.  It's a fun flick, too, so that plus the price may make it a nice, cheap pick up for the casual viewer.  And dedicated fans may still want to track down the Code Red edition for the exclusive documentary.  But for most people, the VS is all you'll need.