The Vampires Night Orgy, Still Featuring Zero Orgies

Why do I love pitting Mill Creek against Code Red so much? I think because you know there's going to be a really sizable difference, and that's always fun. This isn't one of those, "no, if you magnify the actress's hair to 300%, you can see the compression is slightly better in the shadows" situations. I mean, those are worth doing, too, if you're trying to decide between two recent releases, and I already know I've got some close call blu-ray vs. blu-ray comparisons coming up. But tonight I'm looking for something drastic. Tonight I'm looking at Code Red's brand new HD transfer of The Vampires Night Orgy versus Mill Creek's release included in their Pure Terror 50(!) movie DVD pack.

Update 12/21/15 - 10/19/25: VNO upgraded to 4k?!  Well, it's a 4k scan on a 1080p disc, but still - who'da thunk it?  And it's almost (not quite) as drastic a comparison.

Don't let the title fool you; there's no orgy in this movie. It's not a campy movie, it's not a softcore sex movie, and it's light-years away from Nudist Colony Of the Dead or any of those similarly outrageously titled flicks. It's actually an earnest, serious, genuinely creepy and atmospheric horror movie. You can't blame shady American distributors for saddling it with an inappropriate cash-in title, though; it's a direct translation of the film's original Spanish title, La orgía nocturna de los vampiros. But it's actually a fairly smart, subtle film. It's not full of gore or special effects at all, but it's still tightly paced and thoroughly engaging. The dubbing doesn't do it any favors, but the best performances still shine through, and the story itself pulls off being both scary and fun as a group of tourists find out the small village they're staying in is populated entirely by vampires.

Vampires Night is another film by Leon Klimovsky, a film he made in 1974, shortly before The People Who Own the Dark, so it makes sense that Code Red was currently selling the two blus as part of the same bundle of brand new releases. Code Red had previously released it on DVD in 2013 as a double bill with another Klimovsky film, Dr. Jekyll vs. the Werewolf. Before that, it had been languishing in unenforced copyright hell on tons of public domain DVD releases, including of course, Mill Creek's. But now that Code Red is sadly no longer with us, who but Vinegar Syndrome has picked up the mantle, restoring this film to 4k in a 3-disc set of Spanish horror, along with Demon Witch Child and Paul Naschy's Curse Of the Devil.

1) 2010 Mill Creek DVD; 2) 2015 Code Red BD; 3) 2024 Vinegar Syndrome BD.

Give Mill Creek credit; they preserved the film's 2.35:1 aspect ratio.  Well, almost.  It's 2:30:1; and Code Red's is 2.34:1.  That's a pleasant surprise.  But before we get carried away, it's non-anamorphic (I left the negative space around the second Mill Creek shot so you can see) and looks like mud. Also the colors are washed, and it has a little less picture on all four sides. Code Red's blu is infinitely crisper, more colorful and detailed.  On Mill Creek's disc, it's hard to tell what's happening in the night scenes, which is rough because creeping around at night is more than half of this picture. But on Code Red's blu you really appreciate how well lit the night scenes are; it's actually very impressive.  And Vinegar Syndrome's new 4k scan is another leap forward.  The colors are much more natural (Code Red's is very blue), and for the record, it's exactly 2.35:1, and there's even more detail in the shadowed areas.  This was scanned from the original 35mm camera negative; and I'd guess Code Red was taken from a print.

Code Red bumps up Mill Creek's English mono track to DTS-HD, and it's clear and robust for the most part, but the music suffers and breaks up at high volume points.  The music definitely takes a hit.  It sounds better on VS's DTS-HD track, but it's still a little rough, which is probably more down to the film itself rather than the disc.

More excitingly, Vinegar Syndrome has also included the original Spanish audio, also in DTS-HD.  The sound on this one is a little less tinny.  But more importantly, we finally get both language options.  And VS has included two sets of subtitles: a faithful translation of the original Spanish track and one that transcribes the English dub.

Extras-wise, there had never been anything but the theatrical trailer, though it's kind of a fun one, so worth I'm glad they included it. Mill Creek, of course, has nothing.

But now Vinegar Syndrome has walked onto the field, things are different.  First and foremost is an interview with star Jack Taylor.  He reminds us this was over fifty years ago and he's starred in many movies, so unfortunately he doesn't have too many memories to share.  But he still has a few interesting things to say, and it's definitely nice to hear from him.  Next up is expert Ángel Sala, who gives us a casual backstory of this film's history, though it's obvious he hasn't watched this film in a long time, stating that we don't know why Fernando Bilbao's character is killing people, even though it's spelled out explicitly multiple times in the story.  And finally we have Victor Matellano, a contemporary Spanish horror director who fills in some more historical details, bolstered by the fact that he's actually met Klimovsky.  All told, it's about 45 minutes worth of stuff that's definitely worth the watch, especially since this film is so little known.  Disappointingly, VS has dropped the trailer, but they offer reversible cover art that incorporates all three films in the set.

One last point is that while there's no orgy in this film, there are a few bits of nudity. Apparently, there is an alternate version where those scenes were re-shot with clothing, so they could sell it in different markets. Although even the clothed version has a bit of nudity in it (the peeping tom scene at about the 37 minute mark). But still, fans always want to know, is this the clothed or unclothed version of the film? Well, I'm happy to report both the Code Red and Vinegar Syndrome blus have the nude scenes.  It's a bit of a shame VS didn't include the clothed scenes as an extra, since they did that for another film in their set, but we can use the Mill Creek DVD to see the difference:

Ultimately, I'd recommend this movie to pretty much anyone. I'd always passed over the film because of its title and it didn't seem to have many people speaking up for it. I was half expecting some kind of cheapo Wrestling Women Vs. The Aztec Mummy piece of junk, but it's actually a quite well-crafted traditional horror movie with some surprises, fantastic locations and fun moments. The way the townspeople swarm on a victim is sometimes almost like a zombie movie. And Vinegar Syndrome has definitely come up with the best edition of the film to date, treating all three films in its set with the most respect, so this is a great one to roll the dice on and blind buy.

Night Of the Living Dead, 1990: Bigger, Longer & Uncut

Perhaps the most exciting of all of Umbrella's fuller-than-their-competitors' special editions is their new release of Night Of the Living Dead, 1990. That's the remake of George Romero's original that was produced by Tom Savini. This time, the Australian blu seems to come out ahead in both picture quality and absolutely in the special features department. I mean, this is an early entry in the popular wave of unnecessary remakes, but this disc has made me re-evaluate and decide, you know, maybe there really is a place for NotLD90 in my collection after all.

Update 5/11/16 - 7/12/18: I've added the US DVD for comparison, confirming this definitely is the same root master.

Update 9/29/25: It's on, now!  Sony hasn't just upgraded the movie to 4k.  They haven't just enlisted the perfect man (Red Shirt's Michael Felsher) to create a slew of excellent, new special features.  They've also restored the gore Savini was originally forced to edit out for his R rating, meaning we're getting to see this film uncut for the very first time!  ...They may have also made an unfortunate decision, but we'll get into all that below.

Night '90 plays it very close to Night '68. It's not quite shot-for-shot Psycho, but it really plays it beat-by-beat, with cast members even cast for their resemblance to the original characters. So, what does Night '90 bring to the table? Like, why even watch it if you have the original? Well, updated effects for sure. Expect some new, awesome looking zombies like they never could've created in 1968. And the other thing are Savini's twists. Savini knows most fans are familiar with the original, so he's constantly subverting your expectations and giving you little surprises.

A great example of this is right in the beginning. Again, Night '90 follows Night '68 very closely, right down to the details. Barbara and Johnny are visiting their mother at the graveyard even though Johnny doesn't want to. He teases her, including the famous line, "they're coming to get you, Barbara," while pointing to a stumbling old man walking towards them in the distance. Of course, in '68, this turns out to be the first zombie, Bill Hinzman, who kills Johnny and chases Barbara to the farmhouse. But in the remake, it's just an old man who says "sorry," and walks away before the real zombie pops out of frame left and attacks zombie. Of course, he then kills Johnny by cracking his head against a tomb stone and then chases Barbara just like the original. The film stays on the original's tracks. But it's just got all these little alterations and tweaks to keep fans guessing. And the ending, which I won't spoil, is significantly different.

Seeing this for the first time in widescreen (I used to own the VHS, but Umbrella's 2016 blu was the first time I'd watched it since then), has improved by opinion of this film a little bit. Not that I hated it before, but it struck me as having a made for TV movie look. And it is pretty heavy on close-ups, but the cinematography's a tad more impressive now. Even said close-ups are now less boxy, and it's a fairly well-made production over-all. The soundtrack feels like a quick cable TV project, but it's serviceable. Patricia Tallman and especially Tony Todd are rather good in this film, and even the rest of the cast are a little hokey but express their characters well. And let's face it, the original had a lot of the same problems in that area, so we haven't lost any ground there. The original's stark, grainy black and white look is iconic, and this film can't recapture that; but '90 wisely doesn't try, and instead makes it's own, gentle color look. In a way, it makes the film feel a little delicate and old fashioned, but at least it's distinct rather than a poor man's knock-off.

Splat!

And now in 2025, my opinion has risen another little bit.  Because we're finally able to see it uncut.  And let's face it, more gruesome special effects is the whole selling point of Savini's remake.  So, the new running time is just twelve seconds longer, but there's more to the story than that.  It's not just a story of adding a few bloody frames back in, though there is that.  When Tallman and Todd are fighting the two zombies they find in the house, there's six of those extra seconds, which is essentially a single, nasty shot of Tallman wresting her fire-poker out of the farmer zombie's head, which again, is exactly what we were paying to see in 1990.  But other times footage has been replaced.  So when Tom is shotgunning zombies at the gas pumps, they cut to Tony Todd swinging his torch at zombies back at the porch.  But here, instead of that Todd shot, we get a big, gooey Maniac-style shotgun head explosion.  So, now addition to the run-time, but a big addition to the fun factor.

There's also one change I'm not so fond of.  The first four and a half minutes of this film have been turned black and white, as a tribute to the original.  Then it suddenly switches to color during the first attack.  And it's just cheesy; simply a bad idea in my opinion.  The opening shot of this film is a very low saturation shot of the moon, which I think was already there to suggest the film going from black and white to color, but also nice and subtle, just there for those who want to see it.  Now, eh, it's just revisionist "Greedo shot first" tinkering.  To be fair, Sony has included both this uncut director's cut and the original theatrical version for purists, both scanned in 4k, which is definitely the correct impulse.  But I just wish there was a way to watch the restored, uncut version without the black and white tinkering.  But oh well.  It's a compromise that still definitely beats never getting to see the original, censored footage.

So, like I said, Umbrella's blu was my first time with Night Of the Living Dead 1990 on disc. But it was hardly this film's first time at the rodeo. There was a fullscreen laserdisc, then Columbia Tristar put out a DVD release.  The first edition was a flipper disc, fullscreen on one side and anamorphic widescreen on the other.  It had a Savini commentary and 'making of' featurette, and was later reissued in 2006 as just a single sided widescreen disc, which was essentially duplicated in the UK and other regions. Then Twilight Time put it out on blu for the first time in 2012, with the commentary and ditching the featurette; but most notably it's very dark, with a strong blue hue over the entire picture. Then came Umbrella's blu from Australia in 2016.  I have the solo disc, but they also put out a limited edition 2-disc version which pairs this with the original 1968 Night Of the Living Dead, also on blu. That disc includes a full-length documentary on the original called Reflections On the Living Dead, which was originally released on VHS as The Night of the Living Dead 25th Anniversary Documentary. Anyway, finally, we have Sony's wicked new steelbook UHD/ BD combopack, just in time for Halloween.

1) 2006 US Columbia Tri-Star DVD; 2) 2016 Australian Umbrella BD;
3) 2025 Sony BD; 4) 2025 Sony UHD.

The good news is the blue overcast is thankfully gone from the 2016 release! It's still a detailed, HD transfer. It does have occasional speckling and noise (look closely at the zombies' forehead in that second shot), but it's relatively minimal. It's clearly an older master - as you can see, it's the same one they used on the DVDs - but it's fine even for blu-ray standards, possibly a bit better than Twilight Time's even if you take the dark blue shading out of the equation. Like, if I were giving letter grades, it would be a strong B. Oh, and a lot of sites are listing this as 1.85, but it's actually framed at 1.77:1, which to be fair, is what it says on the back of the case.  The DVD, meanwhile, is slightly window-boxed in the overscan areas to 1.81:1, so you can see Umbrella's blu restores a little bit of vertical information to the picture.

And now Sony frames it at exactly 1.85:1, like it should be.  As you can see, it's a little cooler than the other versions on this page, generally looking the most authentic of all (especially on the UHD, which retains a bit more of the reds than its accompanying BD).  That light film damage on the Umbrella disc has been cleaned up.  And thanks to being a fresh, 4k scan, the transfer finally retains the film grain, which helps this film look more genuinely filmic than previous releases, which help's this film's case for not just being a cheap knock-off.  Hey, look, it's a real movie!

Audio-wise, Sony has the core Dolby 2.0 mix, while Umbrella brings the same as Twilight Time gave us: DTS-HD 5.1.  Sony has it, too, but they've also gone big with a new TrueHD 7.1 mix.  And for purists, the theatrical version (only) also has the 2.0 mix in DTS-HD, as well as the 5.1 and 7.1s.  Only Twilight Time has the isolated musical score track, though, which is pretty much their thing.  Every disc offers optional English subtitles.

As for foreign language options, the DVD also has Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Thai subs, plus a Portuguese dub.  And the 2025 set has German, Italian and Spanish dubs along with Danish, Chinese, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, and Turkish subs.

But now let's get into extras, because there's some great stuff to dig into. First of all, again yes, Umbrella retains Savini's audio commentary, which except for a couple stretches of silence, is quite good, and addresses a lot of the topics viewers would have about the remake. And they also bring back the 'making of' featurette that Twilight Time dropped, which is also quite good, showing you a lot of the creation of the film. It's like a serious, 25-minute piece, not just one of those typical promo featurettes that plays like a padded version of the trailer.

But then Umbrella kicks in with a bunch of all new extras (which are, interestingly, credited to Severin Pictures). First off is a new on-camera interview with Savini. At first it seems like he's just going to rehash all the things he said in the commentary and featurette, and he does for the first couple minutes. But then he starts getting serious about all the plans he had for this film that the producers made him cut, why that happened and why he thinks they were wrong. He talks about the divorce he was going through during the shoot and his disappointments with the film, whether Romero really ghost-directed the film, and also how he's finally come around to really appreciating it only recently. It goes for almost half an hour and is much more open and honest - thanks I'm sure to the extra passage of time - than the other pieces. Really, if you only check out one extra about this film, this is the one.

Then you've got a fun interview with John Vulich & Everett Burrell, who're on camera together and clearly having a good time. They're very forthcoming, too; and you can imagine the scrutiny you must be under as the effects team when Tom Savini is your director. Patricia Tallman, who was interviewed in the 'making of' featurette, has her own on-camera piece here, too. She's very cheerful and proud of the film, but also addresses things like when Romero took over shooting at the end because Savini had to "go take care of" his divorce. And there's also an eight-minute "behind the scenes" featurette, which is really a collection of video tape footage that the special effects guys took of the shoot. It's tightly edited, so we really just get the interesting moments without like twenty minutes of set-up for an insert shot or actors asleep in their make-up chairs. There's also the original theatrical trailer and reversible cover art, clearly by the same artist as the Night Of the Creeps cover.

And now in 2025?  Sony carries over all of the old stuff from the DVD and yes, from the Umbrella, save one, but let's put a pin that.  Because, besides all that old stuff, we've got a bunch of new stuff, including a new Savini commentary, for the slightly longer director's cut.  And we've got all new, on camera interviews with co-stars Bill Moseley, William Butler, McKee Anderson & Heather Mazur, amiable zombies Greg Funk and Dyrk Ashton, producers John A. Russo & Russell Streiner and editor Tom Dubensky.  Now, Sony does seem to have dropped that eight-minute "behind the scenes" featurette, BUT Felsher has cut that footage into a couple of the interviews, so I'm not sure that every frame is accounted for, but you're really not missing anything.  Sony's disc also comes in a nice looking steelbook case.

I once called Umbrella's blu "the definitive release of Night Of the Living Dead 1990, at least for now." Well, that "now" has turned to "then," because Sony's new release is a strong improvement in every category: picture, audio, special features... and they're put the censored footage back in!  If you care enough to have this film in your collection, this is the one you have to have.

This Is All the Spinal Tap You Need

I guess there's a temptation to call 1984's This Is Spinal Tap ground-breaking.  I've read so many people talk about how, when this came out, people couldn't figure out whether this was real, and only the hip people got it.  I think there's a lot of "print the legend" to that origin story.  I mean, mockumentaries were a thing long before this.  Heck, Woody Allen had made two.  Eric Idle and Lorne Michaels even did their similar "rockumentary" The Rutles years before this.  This kind of parody was the lifeblood of shows like SCTV and SNL.  In fact, the boys had even played Spinal Tap years before on network television.  So I don't know if it was really pushing any envelopes, but it was and is still a funny, well crafted flick.

Revisiting the original Spinal Tap in 2025, yes it still holds up as fresh and clever.  Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer have proved themselves to be brilliant comic actors and improvisors over their careers, but this is still their shining example.  Director Rob Reiner, probably pulling all the industry favors he can, has assembled an amazing supporting cast around them, including excellent comic turns from Bruno Kirby, Patrick Macnee, Howard Hesseman, Anjelica Houston, Paul Shaffer, Fran Drescher and scene stealer Fred Willard.  Some of these are just fleeting cameos, like Ed Begley Jr and Billy Crystal, but they all work together to enhance the perfect atmosphere.  The famous bits ("this one goes to eleven," etc) are as funny as ever, but they've also produced a credible human drama to house the jokes and the songs.

Criterion first released Spinal Tap as a non-anamorphic follow-up to their special edition laserdisc in 1998.  The rights soon reverted back to MGM who released their own special edition DVD in 2000, and then upgraded it to blu-ray in 2009, with an additional bonus disc.  Yeah, the extras situation is complicated, and we'll hash that all out below.  But the point is, you needed both the Criterion and MGM releases to have everything, and that's been the frustrating situation in the US all these years.  But now, looking to reclaim their title, Criterion has reclaimed... their title, with a new 3-disc UHD/ BD combo-pack.  Is it the ultimate edition we've been hoping for?

1) 1998 Criterion DVD; 2) 2000 MGM DVD; 3) 2009 MGM BD;
4) 2025 Criterion BD; 5) 2025 Criterion UHD.

The basic aspect ratio hasn't changed much over the years, but there have been slight shifts.  We start at about 1.78:1, which you pretty much had to upgrade once you got a widescreen set, anyway, since it's non-anamorphic.  You can see it's a little tighter on the right with extra picture vertically (especially along the bottom) compared to MGM's DVD, which is a just slightly windowboxed 1.83:1. The BD, a nice boost to HD that clears up a lot of compression and fuzziness, takes the opportunity to fine tune that to a more exact 1.85:1.  And Criterion's new transfer is also precisely 1.85:1, but you can see their new scan pulls out a little further to reveal some extra slivers of information around the edges.

This new scan, we're told in Criterion's booklet, is a "new 4K restoration ... created from the 16mm original camera negative and a 35mm blow-up interpositive."  I do wish these booklets gave us a little more details on the transfer, like what scenes were taken from an interpositive and why?  There's no reason the "About the Transfer" part of a 28-page booklet has to be limited to three sentences, including one about the audio.  But that gives us the basics.  This is 16mm, and not always from the OCN, so there's not going to be a fresh horde of fine detail.  When the band are standing in front of a bunch of tourist pamphlets in their hotel, you still can't read any of their covers.  Actually, your first take away will probably be that it's all a bit grey.  Even accounting for these being HD shots converted to SD, Criterion's transfer is definitely on the dark side.  Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I'd guess the older transfers had a bit of a contrast and saturation boost to give them a more common, but less historically accurate look.  Anyway, Reiner is credited with supervising this, so let's hope he was paying attention.  It's certainly not distractingly dim in 4k, and the carefully rendered grain certainly gives this the most authentically filmic look of them all.

Audio-wise, the '98 Criterion DVD just has the original stereo mix, while MGM replaces it with a new 5.1 remix.  That's understandable for a rock concert movie, but a bit of a bummer for purists.  Their blu-ray bumps it up to DTS-HD, which is noticeably clearer in spots, and it brings back the 2.0l but the latter is disappointingly lossy.  So Criterion gives us the best of both worlds with the 5.1 in DTS-HD and the original stereo mix in LPCM[Or did they...?  See the comments, but it looks like the stereo mix here may not be the original after all].

Criterion's original DVD was surprisingly free of subtitle, but MGM quickly corrected that by introducing optional English and Spanish to their DVD and BD.  They also added French ones to the blu.  And now in 2025, Criterion drops those foreign ones, but keeps the English HoH.

The Final Tour

Now, I mentioned that the extras situation has always been frustrating with this film, and that hasn't been entirely cleared up; but they've gotten pretty close.  The '98 Criterion starts out with a lot of great stuff, including two fun but informative commentary tracks: one by the three stars, and one by Reiner, producer Karen Murphy, and their editors.  They also included almost 80 minutes of deleted scenes, practically a second feature's worth of content!  There's also some funny promo content and the early 20-minute "demo" version of the film called The Final Tour.

And MGM's DVD had a lot of that, including pretty much all the deleted scenes.  It's a bit confusing, because they list it all out differently in the menus... MGM ostensibly has eleven minutes less deleted scenes, but then they have stuff like the "Flower People" press conference listed separately, while that was among the deleted scenes on the Criterion.  And they have some bits, like a clip of Tap on The Joe Franklin Show, that Criterion didn't have.  MGM had a new, 5-minute interview with Reiner in character as Marty DiBergi.  The biggest short-comings were that MGM didn't have the two audio commentaries or The Final Tour - oof!  But they created their own, exclusive commentary with the stars in character as Tap, which is... kinda amusing, but wears a bit thin after a while.

The came MGM's blu, which essentially mirrored their DVD, in terms of both what it had and what it was missing, but they also included a new bonus DVD.  And this sucker was short - about twelve minutes of low quality, non-anamorphic footage in total.  It basically includes a brief performance by Tap from 2007 (introduced by Reiner and Ricky Gervais), and a short, but genuinely funny, interview with Guest in character as Nigel.  Nice to have, but MGM was clearly reaching just to add a "bonus disc" and make their new version more saleable.  Surely, they could've stuck those two little SD clips on their blu-ray.

Anyway, the good news is that Criterion is here to close the gaps.  Their new 2025 release has all three commentaries.  The Final Tour is back, and there are even more deleted scenes and promo clips than ever.  The Joe Franklin Show, the Marty DiBergi, the "Flower People" conference: all here.  There are also some new goodies, including a brand new half hour chat with Reiner and Patton Oswalt.  And there's a 2009 in-character interview feature with the band called Back From the Dead, which runs almost a full hour.  There are some clips (basically, the funniest scenes) from the 1992 television sequel The Return Of Spinal Tap, and the trailer for the new theatrical sequel Spinal Tap II: The End Continues (I've seen it, and all the best jokes are in the trailer, so that honestly might be enough unless you're a real die-hard fan).  They also throw in a fun, full-color booklet with notes by critic Alex Pappademas.  The only thing they don't have are the MGM bonus disc clips from 2007.

So yes, this really is the ultimate edition that delivers all you need.  You could also track down one of the several low quality DVDs of Return Of Spinal Tap (fair warning: several foreign blu-rays claim to include this as a bonus feature, but it's a drastically cut down abridged version, so stay away from those) and that bonus DVD.  But honestly, I think after watching everything in this set, with a lot of the same jokes rehashed and same songs replayed, you'll already have had more than enough.  This is a really fun movie that still holds up, but it doesn't need to be a franchise.

Werner Herzog in Glorious 3D: Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Oops!  Okay, this is the the last Werner Herzog left to be covered now (I'm pretty sure haha).  Anyway, this is a going to be a fun one for me, because it's the first 3D blu-ray to be covered on DVDExotica.  I'm talking, of course, about the 2010 documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams, released on DVD and blu by MPI Home Video as a new release in 2011.  The blu-ray has the rare distinction of including the 2D and 3D versions on the same BD (typically, releases that feature both versions are doing so by including two separate discs).  That made it my first 3D blu.

This is a documentary about the earliest known cave paintings - over 30,000 years old - discovered in France.  And some of them don't look as simplistically primitive as you might expect.  A lot of tests had to be conducted to prove it wasn't an elaborate hoax.  Herzog and his small film crew are the first people allowed in by the scientists to film, and he apparently decided to shoot in 3D because of how the artwork incorporates the the bumps and crevices in the natural rock formations.  And a lot of time is dedicated to demonstrating how the paintings look under different light conditions and from different angles.  So the three dimensional element is meant to bring out additional nuance and stylistic decisions of these ancient artists.

And it's not all just ogling cave paintings... which is good, because there are only so many of them, and even as is, it starts to hit you, alright, this is the third or fourth look at the same pictures.  Herzog interviews the scientists and local historians who talk about the complex work involved in documenting and protecting the delicate art, and the history of the land and the early people who would've done the work.  And it's Herzog, so you can be sure he's also them about their dreams and life stories, as well as capturing producing gorgeous nature photography set to a powerful, original score.  There's also a wild prologue on the surrounding area and the consequences of modern man taking over ancient spaces.  So he guides a fascinating exploration even if you don't have a predisposed interest in cave paintings.

3D side-by-side: left eye left; right eye right.

So yeah, since this is my first 3D disc, I thought I'd take the opportunity to pull it apart and explore the dual-stream aspect.  So the third set of shots are the dual images you would see to make each from 3D.  Briefly, how it works is that a 3D camera shoots the film with two lens, side by side (y'know, like human eyes) and literally shoots the exact same film twice, simultaneously, from slightly different perspectives.  Your 3D set then plays the image at double speed - so two 24fps streams intercutting every single frame: left eye, right eye, left eye, right) and your glasses are synced to the TV so they each eye only sees the frame they're supposed to see, leaving your mind to compile them as a 3D image.  So above, the bottom two shots side-by-side may look identical, but they're not - they're filmed at slightly different angles.  And the 2D version, then, is actually just the left eye stream, as you can see below.

2011 MPI DVD; 2011 MPI BD.

Anyway, the film is presented in 1.78:1, anamorphic, and of varying quality, because Herzog clearly shot different parts of the film with different cameras.  The early footage of Herzog first entering the cave (the first screenshot on this page) was clearly interlaced and had to be de-interlaced, leaving ugly ghosted frames and stuttering camera pans.  But that's just the nature of the film, not a fault of the discs, and the picture improves as the film goes on.  They're both presumably taken direct from the DCP, and are identical in terms of color timing, framing, etc.  But unfortunately for those who hadn't yet upgraded to HD in 2011, the DVD interlaces recurring frames throughout the whole movie; but the properly progressive BD and doesn't have that problem.  And it's naturally clearer and less fuzzy than the DVD by virtue of being higher resolution.

Another difference is that the BD features lossless audio, bumping up the same 5.1 mix to DTS-HD.  Both discs also include optional English and Spanish subtitles.

Ode To the Dawn Of Man

I wouldn't say MPI's release qualifies as a special edition, but it has one very good special feature (on both the DVD and blu): a roughly 45-minute first-hand documentary on the creation of the music for this film by conductor Jason Solomons.  Ode To the Dawn Of Man is directed by Herzog himself, so you'll sometimes see it listed in his filmography as an original short film of his, which it legitimately.  It's also in HD on the blu, and includes optional English and Spanish subtitles, though the audio is lossy either way.  So that's a nice treat, though some other kind of extra, like a director interview, about all the other aspects of this movie would've been nice.  But that's all we get apart from the trailer and some bonus trailers.

This disc has always made me daydream about the day every TV is 3D.  I think Sony was pushing in that direction, but it never happened, and now that 3D discs are on the hard decline, I guess it never will.  Oh well; I would've loved to see Herzog's full three dimensional vision.  But even if you're not 3D capable, it's definitely worth picking up this blu, and even double-dipping from the DVD if you haven't already.