Update Megaweek, Day 4: Dan O'Bannon's The Resurrected

Dear Lions Gate, you may not be aware, but among the many, many excellent cult catalog titles you have shut away in your vaults, is an fun, highly regarded HP Lovecraft adaptation that fans have been asking for called The Resurrected. It's written and directed by Dan O'Bannon, creator behind such cult classics as Return Of the Living Dead, Dark Star and co-writer of the original Alien. You've even got a lovely, HD master already made (we know, because it's streamed on Netflix). And all you would need to do, to make a lot of people very happy, boost your reputation and make a nice little profit is to release it on DVD and blu-ray, or sub-license it to a niche label like Scream Factory, Synapse, etc. who will happily do it for you. I could see wanting to do it yourself, or leasing it out and letting another company front all the risk and labor, but surely you'd want to do something more than just sitting on your vast catalog and watching them depreciate in value - especially with a hot.

Update, update, holy crap - update! 8/28/15: The special edition this film should've gotten years ago has finally landed! It's a limited edition blu-ray/ DVD combo pack from OFDb Filmworks, with a plethora of extras from Red Shirt Pictures. The film's finally been released in its OAR, and its in HD. It's a pretty lavish set from Germany (so be prepared for Region B blu and region 2 DVD), and I just got my hands on it the other day, so let's take a look! Join me further down the page for a fresh comparison and look at all the new features.

Update 1/5/20: So in 2015, it was a German, region B release.  Shortly after, Lions Gate really started cracking open their vaults with the Vestron Line.  And tonight we wrap up our updating run with the one title they licensed to Scream Factory for a proper US release in 2017.

Update 4/25/26: I wasn't expecting this one.  This past Halloween, Vinegar Syndrome upgraded The Resurrected to 4k, with a fancy new BD/ UHD special edition set.  Also today, since it's Update Megaweek, I'm adding coverage of the indie documentary Andre Gregory: Before and After Dinner to the My Dinner With Andre page.

The Resurrected is one of the most direct, faithful adaptations of Lovecraft on film, starring Chris Sarandon (who, by the way Lions Gate, starred in the also underestimated Fright Night, which wound up selling out its entire blu-ray run in only two days. Just sayin'.) as Charles Dexter Ward, whose wife hires a private detective (24's John Terry) to find out why he's disappeared to a remote cabin with a strange man. Mad science, gruesome murders and a sequence set in the 1700s stand between them and the monstrous answer. Impressive effects, music by the always reliable Richard Band and some atmospheric cinematography (though you wouldn't know it from the full screen version) add up to a quality horror flick just dying to be rediscovered by a broader audience. The Lurker In the Lobby: A Guide to the Cinema of H.P. Lovecraft calls it, "the best serious Lovecraftian screen adaptation to date."

Admittedly, part of the difficulty The Resurrected has had finding its audience is that the film ran into some difficulty in post production. The producers took the film away from O'Bannon, who said he felt it was his best work at the time, and re-cut it themselves. So it went through a couple titles (Shatterbrain and The Ancestor) and a final version O'Bannon wasn't so pleased with. And tragically, Dan O'Bannon has passed away, so it's too late to hope for his involvement in any kind of special edition. But thankfully, his director's cut already exists! He made it before he passed and it's already screened theatrically as early as 2013. It's frustrating that nobody's taken the opportunity to pull a Nightbreed and put out the still unreleased director's cut along with the theatrical version of the film.  But we at least get deleted scenes taken from the workprint on both the OFDb and Scream Factory discs, which is a good step in the right direction.

Now, to be fair to Lions Gate, they did release The Resurrected on DVD at one point. It's fifteen years old now, long out of print, and a completely no-frills fullscreen release without even a trailer, but that's substantially more than can be said for some other sought after Lions Gate titles, like Nightwish Tale of a Vampire.  But it really wasn't until OFDb released it in Germany that the film could be said to have any kind of proper edition.  They released a proper widescreen version in 2015 on blu as a limited edition media book, followed by a slimmer single-disc release in 2016.  Then in 2017, we got it in HD here in the US courtesy of Scream Factory.  And finally (to date), we got it in 4k from Vinegar Syndrome, in a BD/ UHD combo-pack.

1) 2005 LG DVD; 2) 2015 OFDb BD; 3) 2017 SF BD;
4) 2025 VS BD; 5) 2025 VS UHD.

Credit where it's due, Lions Gate's DVD is at least open matte rather than pan & scan, so nothing's cropped away.  Still, it's interlaced.  And looking at the composition, there's no question that the widescreen version is the correct ratio, with the OFDb looking much more impressive in 1.78:1.  Then, SF's blu is even wider at 1.85:1, but they didn't just matte it a little more.  It actually has more vertical info (though not as much as the DVD) and more on the sides - especially the left.  The boxy look of the film on DVD and cable is certainly a part of the negative reactions this film has gotten from casual viewers over the years. So it's great to see this finally looking like a movie, not a cheap TV show. Granted, OFDb's HD transfer doesn't look quite state of the art: it's a little soft and it doesn't look like we've got a natural look at the film grain yet. And that goes for Scream's blu, too.  It has the improved framing and they've also done some fresh color correction (OFDb's timing pretty much matches the old DVD), providing some additional separation, with generally white whites, and unveils some detail that was crushed away in the shadows of the earlier edition.  But their 2k scan of the interpositive still seems to have had its grain smoothed away, or just not thoroughly captured in the first place.

Well, that issue is clearly taken away with the new 4k scan, and VS has upgraded the source from an interpositive to the original camera negative.  Still 1.85:1, VS's new scan pulls back to reveal a tiny bit of extra information along all four sides. The color timing is very much like Scream's, as opposed to the earlier editions, but there's an extra photo-realistic authenticity, particularly to the UHD.  Compare the skin-tones in the first set of shots to see what I mean.  That said, it's not an upgrade that jumps right out at you.  Zoom in and you finally see how finely rendered the film grain is and what a higher quality product we've got now.  But casual viewers might file these distinctions under: Who Cares?

The 2005 DVD just offered the original stereo track with no subtitle options.  OFDb bumped that up to DTS-HD, plus both 2.0 and 5.1 DTS-HD mixes of the German dub with optional German subtitles.  Scream Factory and Vinegar Syndrome keep just the stereo track in DTS-HD and gives the film optional English subtitles for the first time.

So it's great to have a widescreen release of this film, finally, but where OFDb has really excelled is the extras. Now, this is a German disc, so there are a couple of bits that are German only. But most things - all the important stuff -  is completely English-friendly.

First up is an audio commentary (yes, in English) with the film's producers Mark Borde and Kenneth Raich, writer Brent V. Friedman, special effects artist Todd Masters and actor Robert Romanus (he played Lonnie).  Brent Friedman and Todd Masters also comes back for on-camera interviews, running 18 and 16 minutes respectively. This and all the other interviews are in English with optional/ removable German subtitles. The other interviews include star Chris Sarandon (16 mins), composer Richard Band (10 mins), and production designer Brent Thomas (8 mins). There's also a brief acceptance speech by Dan O'Bannon at the Chainsaw Awards, introduced by Bruce Campbell and Quentin Tarantino, and two trailers for the film. Finally and perhaps most excitingly of all, there's over 18 minutes of recovered footage of the director's cut from the workprint tape. As you'd expect, it's from fuzzy 4:3 tape, but it actually looks a lot cleaner than most workprints I've seen, looking essentially like a commercial VHS release. It's missing music cues, and there's the occasional "shot missing" card for big effects moments; but this is really the stuff fans have been wanting to see since final cut was first taken from O'Bannon back in 1991. These are all on the blu-ray and in HD.

2015 OFDb DVD.

Because yeah, technically OFDb's release is a 3-disc set.  The second disc in this set is the DVD version of the blu.  And the third disc is most of the extras that couldn't fit on the blu on DVD. It's worth noting, though, that there's an animated stills gallery with the behind-the-scenes photos and such that's only on the DVD, and not on the blu. And for the German speakers among us, there are also two additional commentaries (one with a pair of German film critics, and one with two guys from Wicked-Vision Magazin), as well as a radio play of the original Lovecraft story. Oh, and there's a glossy, 80-page book included in this set, which is also all in German. But at least it makes the set look a little more lavish. There's a separate insert, too, with a note from the producers of the DVD and telling you the individual number of your limited copy (mine's 2040/5000).

And Scream Factory?  Thankfully, they've imported everything except the German-language commentaries.  Even that photo gallery.  And most excitingly, they've also come up with a little bit more.  First is an on-camera interview with ST Joshi, the Lovecraft expert we've seen on several recent Lovecraft discs, like Dagon and Beyond Re-Animator.  Then, even better, they interview female lead Jane Sibbett.  Apparently, she doesn't like horror movies, but she's a good sport.  Scream's release also comes with reversible cover art.

Vinegar Syndrome carries everything over, too, but they don't add too much more to the pot.  But to be fair, there aren't many gaps left to fill.  They basically conducted three new on-camera interviews.  The first of which is Chris Sarandon, which is nice, but we've already heard from him and he doesn't have a whole lot more to say.  The second is an expert: Kim Newman, who also struggles to find things to say that haven't already been said on these discs.  And third is Robert Romanus, who was already on the commentary.  It's nice that they made the effort, but nothing to get excited about.  Their release has reversible artwork, and the initial limited edition also came in a slipcover.

 

OFDb's release turned out to be absolutely everything I was asking and hoping for when I wrote the original version of this post, and Scream Factory's is even better.  Then Vinegar Syndrome came along and gave us a truly definitive edition, unquestionably the one to buy if you're just starting out with this movie.  But you'd have to be pretty hardcore to justify triple-dipping if you've been keeping up with every step.

Update Megaweek, Day 3: The Brood Leading The Brood

Like I was recently saying, I'm interested in these semi-simultaneous blu-ray releases of cult titles in the US and the UK. Here's a fairly recent pairing: The Brood, first released overseas by Second Sight in 2013, and just a couple months ago here in the states by Criterion. Curiously, they share some extras in common, but each also have unique features; and the transfers themselves are different. It raises the question again, which is better?

Update 3/18/16 - 4/24/26: Today it's time the latest Second Sight's 4k upgrade of The Brood!  Also, I've added the original 1999 DVD of A Nightmare On Elm St, so that page now features all four official transfers.

If you're not familiar with The Brood, you ought to be, as it's one of David Cronenberg's most compelling films. It may even be his greatest, but his catalog is so rich and diverse, it's tempting to call several of his films the best, simply depending on which you've last watched. It's a wild mix of intelligent science fiction and riveting psycho-drama. Art Hindle is a father who suspects his wife, Samantha Eggar, has begun abusing their daughter after joining a cult-like psychotherapy group run by Oliver Reed. These people are into a cutting edge technique called "psychoplasmics," where patients somehow work out their emotional problems biologically. The most unforgettable scene for me isn't a suspenseful scare or complicated special effects sequence, but simply when Hindle finds ex-patient Robert Silverman, who wears a towel around his neck and and gives a brilliant monologue about his routine for exercising his lymphatic system and his class-action lawsuit against Reed's organization. Of course, there's plenty of truly memorable horror scenes as well, including two monstrous little kids conducting a hit in a kindergarten class room and Eggar's gruesome birthing scene.

It's just so successful on so many levels at once: intellectual, visceral, the performances... The only complaint I can see potential viewers have is that it's too talky for fans looking for a fast-moving horror show. And even then, you can't say that this film doesn't present the goods in terms of special effects, shocking imagery and violent deaths, if that's what you're after. It's Cronenberg really successfully bridging the gap between horror/exploitation genre fare and serious, adult films. Even most of his own work tends to pick a site, but I love it when he masters them both at once.

So, like I said, I've got Second Sight's 2013 blu-ray from the UK and Criterion's new 2015 blu-ray. I've also got the 2000 French/ Canadian DVD from DVDY Films, under the title Chromosome 3, which was always the best pre-HD release of the film (though MGM put out a respectable but slim, no frills DVD in 2003, which I used to own for a while). I'll put that one into the comparison mix, too, because it shows us something interesting about the transfers and it includes a little something that makes it still collectible to this day. And of course, now I've got the latest and greatest: Second Sight's 2025 UHD.  The limited edition was a two-disc set with a BD and UHD, and the standard edition just has the UHD.  I don't see much point in adding redundant, lower quality copies of the film to my collection, so I went with the latter.

1) DVDY DVD; 2) Second Sight BD; 3) Criterion BD; 4) Second Sight UHD.

Now, if you're very astute, you'll notice that the blu-rays leave the film open at 1.78:1, whereas only the DVD matted it down to 1.85:1, at least until the UHD, which brought the 1.85 back. And the framing is slightly shifted on all four transfers, revealing slivers of information on all different sides of each disc. But you don't have to be astute at all to notice the big, glaring difference between them... who turned out the lights on the Criterion disc? It's so much darker and blu/ gray, compared to Second Sight's. But if you really scrutinize it, maybe it's a little too bright. When the brights are super high, like in snow or flared out sunlight, there's a teensy bit of white crush, though you can only even be sure by comparing it to the other discs. Look at the highlights in Reed's hair, and you can see detail eaten away in the SS blu that's present in the DVD and Criterion blu.

1) DVDY DVD; 2) Second Sight BD; 3) Criterion BD; 4) Second Sight UHD.

So it's very telling now that Second Sight have moved strongly towards Criterion with their new restoration. It's even gets a little darker. In the extras, they talk about having shot a lot of night-for-day (or at least dusk-for-day), so I'm thinking we've arrived at the more accurate representation of what's on the film.  And it does look better now in the Dolby Vision HDR, with richer more distinct colors and deeper blacks (indeed, higher contrast in general) than Criterion had.  And film grain, which frankly was pretty weak on both blus, now finally looks like real film.  And that does pay off in actual, visual detail.  You can read even more of the small text in those posters in that first set of shots than ever.  For instance, did you know that "Traffic in both directions must STOP when a stopped school bus flashes red lights front an rear - regardless of speed limit?"  You could always read that bright red "STOP," but this is the first time I could make out that whole message.

Both blus and the UHD offer uncompressed LPCM mono tracks and optional English subtitles. The DVD has French and English Dolby tracks with semi-forced English subtitles (there's a trick to remove them on most players, but it doesn't work on my Pioneer). They're not burnt in or anything, though. But the DVD is also cut.  It's the R-rated version, trimmed of about 30-40 seconds, really, the only reason to be considering that one is for the extras.

Yes, the extras. The DVD actually has some exclusive stuff, which is why it's worth hanging onto even if you've got one or both of the blu-rays. Some of it's not English-friendly (boo! Though if you speak French, it's a nice bonus), including an introduction by Serge Grunberg (who wrote a book on Cronenberg), and a featurette called Cronenberg On Horror. But there's also a lengthy Q&A with Cronenberg and composer Howard Shore, where they speak in English. No other release has that. I wouldn't double-dip for it, but if you already own it, I wouldn't sell it off either.

Now, to the blus. Second Sight created some great, new special features for their release. Five to be exact. There's a great twenty-minute interview with Art Hindle and Cindy Hinds, and an informative talk with cinematographer Mark Irwin. Then they've got a good one with producer Pierre David who gives us the film's history, and a very welcome talk with Cronenberg regular Robert A. Silverman. Finally, there's an interview with David Cronenberg himself, where he talks about his beginnings as a filmmaker, from how he got started to Rabid. Curiously though, they stop right before getting to The Brood.

Disappointingly, Criterion ports over some of those extras, but not all. Specifically, they use Second Sight's interview with Hindle and Hinds, and the Cronenberg one about his history. But then they also scared up some new stuff of their own, most notably Birth Pains, a thirty minute retrospective on the film that talks to Eggar (who's quite enthusiastic about the film), Mark Irwin, Pierre David, assistant director John Board, and effects artists Rick Baker and Joe Blasco. It's quite good and the inclusion of Irwin and David eases the pain of their missing Second Sight interviews; but it's a bummer they didn't carry over Silverman's. If they could license some of the titles, why not all? Oh well, there's probably a very good and dry reason.

Criterion also includes Crimes of the Future, an early Cronenberg short film that's been included on heaps of Cronenberg DVDs and blu-rays by every company under the sun, but hey, why not have it here, too? They also have an episode of The Merv Griffin Show with Oliver Reed, but he never talks about The Brood on it. It's mostly just celebrity banter between the two of them, plus other guests Orson Welles and Charo: lightly amusing but hardly essential. Criterion also comes with a booklet featuring notes by Carrie Rickey, and they have a radio spot. Curiously, none of these releases feature the theatrical trailer, though the MGM DVD had it.

Now, the new Second Sight has all of their old extras, but none of Criterion's, and still not the DVDY stuff.  And they still don't have the trailer.  They do scare up a 2016 interview with Howard Shore and an expert commentary by William Beard, both of which were made for a German blu-ray.  And they made some new stuff: another expert commentary by Martyn Conterio & Kat Ellinger, and a video essay by Leigh Singer.  Honestly, I'm not sure most of that stuff was worth the time it took to sit through, but it was nice to get the Shore interview.  And you could get this in as a standard edition or limited edition version in a slipcase with a 120-page book and six art cards.

So what once was a tough decision has been made very easy.  You might want to hang onto some of the previous editions for additional extras, but you definitely want to double-dip for the UHD regardless.

Update Megaweek, Day 2: The Full, Grizzly Experience

Well, this is my first time owning Grizzly, thanks to a review copy sent from 88 Films, but it's far from my first time seeing it.  I grew up on these movies on TBS back in the 80s.  They kind of run together a bit for me: very talky, made-for-TV feeling animal attack films with a batch of commercials every three minutes.  Not exactly cutting edge Hellraiser, but they were pretty much your only free, daytime horror options as a kid.  I can still remember Leslie Nielsen ripping off his shirt in the woods, deciding he had become a killer animal, too, and he was going to rip apart all his fellow campers who dared to question his leadership.  Unfortunately, this isn't that movie, but it's a close second.

Update 9/1/18: Adding the Scorpion DVD, which has some special features not on the 88 blu.

Update 4/23/26: It's Update Megaweek, and today I'm adding Severin's latest blu-ray from 2021.  I was going to let this be a secondary post this megaweek, but actually comparing the discs for the first time today, I was surprised how drastic the improvement was, so I wanted to give it its moment at the top of the front page.  Scroll down and see for yourself.  Oh, I've also just added Sony's 2005 DVD to my Oliver! page.

A lot of these movies take heavily from the popular disaster genre of the 70s, like The Poseidon Adventure and Avalanche, combined with the radioactive giant critter films of the 50s, like Them or Beginning Of the End.  But coming immediately on the heels of Speilberg's 1975 box office sensation, Grizzly sticks very closely to the Jaws script, and with taglines like "the most dangerous Jaws on land" and "not since Jaws has the terror been like this," they're not shy about it.  Christopher George is Roy Scheider, the official in charge of keeping the park safe for the public.  He catches onto the shark grizzly killing vacationers pretty quickly, but people don't want to believe him and the guy in charge refuses to shut down the park despite George's warnings.  So he assembles a 3-man team, with Andrew Prine as Richard Dreyfus and Richard Jaeckel as Robert Shaw.  It's all here, dragging a bloody corpse to lure the beast to the animal's POV shots lurking up on its victims.  There's even a sequence where the music mimics John Williams' famous "duh-nuh, duh-nuh" theme as the bear sneaks up on an camper.

But in the end, the Jaws angle isn't what sells the movie, at least not decades later now that we're hip-deep in Jaws knock-offs.  It's the wildly satisfying bear attack sequences.  They're surprisingly graphic and ambitious.  The bear swats one woman and her arm goes flying across the clearing.  A small child is mauled on screen.  A horse is beheaded with one, clean swipe!  And I won't even begin to spoil the conclusion that could still make audiences break out into cheers and applause.  The rest of the film is about as flat and dull as you'd imagine: wooden dialogue, excessive pseudo-scientific exposition, and completely uninteresting subplots that never affect the story... I suspect there's an earlier draft where Joan McCall's role as a reporter was going to lead her to investigate the camper deaths and, you know, get endangered or something.

Yeah, the bulk of Grizzly is awfully generic, but it really knows how to deliver the goods.  All the helicopter shots and variant locations don't add much by way of thrills, but they at least belay a healthy budget.  More impressively, they make great use of a real bear though there are of course a few scenes where actors are clearly mauled by a PA in a fuzzy glove.  Actors are harnessed up to portray massive Rawhead Rex-style bash-ecutions.  It helps a lot that they play everything deadly straight, unlike the goofy Sharknado outings of today.  Grizzly never goes camp or winks at the audience, except for one scene that sticks out like a sore thumb, where a female ranger, on the hunt for the man-eating grizzly bear, decides to take an inexplicable break to strip down and bathe in a small waterfall... where of course the bear is hiding!  But even that just manages to add to Grizzly's only-in-the-70s charm.

This is hardly Grizzly's first time at the rodeo.  Shriek Show first rescued it from the dark sea of grey market DVDs with a nice, 2-disc special edition.  Scorpion released it as a somewhat strange, limited edition blu-ray release in 2014.  They included two transfers (yes, it was a BD50), unfiltered or DVNRed, sold with the warning that, "This Blu-Ray of GRIZZLY is not up to our usual standards for a Blu-Ray release. However, due to the overwhelming request for this title, we are presenting the film to you in the best way possible in HD. Although there are many imperfections with the materials, we hope you can still enjoy the presentation as it is while viewing. Thank you."  Their DVD counterpart, on the other hand, just features the one transfer.  Also curious: they didn't include the audio commentary from the DVD, even though Walt Olsen (president of Scorpion) was one the participants.  Anyway, it was released on blu more broadly in 2018 in the UK from 88 Films.  That's the edition most of us got our hands on until 2021 when Severin issued it in the US with an all-new 2k scan.

1) 2014 Scorpion DVD; 2) 2018 88 Films BD; 3) 2021 Severin BD.

Presented in a very wide, 2.40:1 aspect ratio, 88's disc clearly uses the same master as Scorpion's (also 2.40:1), but thankfully they've opted for the non-DNR version.  This is a very grainy transfer, probably taken from a print.  But while there are occasional white flecks and minor blemishes - even a little soft flickering in one or two scenes - for the most part, Grizzly's in much cleaner, more attractive condition than I was expecting.  The colors are strong and very natural, and the aforementioned grain is very distinct and crisply rendered. I'm surprised Scorpion got self conscious enough to issue a disclaimer over this master.

But now we've got a fresh 2k scan from the internegative, and man, it looks so much better.  I mean, just look how much more distinct those colors are!  Looking at them side by side, it really brings up how red the previous master was.  Also, the AR is roughly the same at 2.39:1, but look how much more image is in the frame.  Who knew what we were missing before now?

Audio-wise, the Scorpion DVD has the mono and, surprisingly, a 5.1 remix.  88 drops that, but we get a healthy, lossless LPCM 2.0 mix.  No subtitles, but then the Scorpion and Shriek Show releases didn't have any either.  Severin does, though, as well as the original mono in DTS-HD.

Here's where things get even more interesting: special features.  The Shriek Show set was pretty full, with the audio commentary, plus a nearly 40 minute retrospective documentary, a screening Q&A, vintage 'making of' featurette and some other little odds and ends.  Scorpion carried over some of that, but lost the commentary and vintage featurette (though they did add their Katrina intro, if you're interested in that).  And 88?  Well, disappointingly, they've included none of that.  But they did produce their own, all-new exclusive 23-minute featurette.  It's an interview with David Del Valle, who's basically here as an expert to give us a little of the backstory for the film.  But he knew Christopher George, so he's able to give us some unique personal anecdotes, and it winds up mostly being about him.  Quite interesting and definitely worth the watch.  Besides that, we get the theatrical trailer and, if you get the first pressing, it also includes a limited edition slipcover and booklet where Calum Waddell rather generously compares the film to George Orwell's Animal Farm, and gives a little history to the "animals run amuck" genre, with quotes from Joe Dante and others.

And Severin?  First of all, the commentary's back!  And they've got a new one with experts Nathaniel Thompson and Troy Howarth.  Honestly, it's kinda silly and skippable; but it's great to have the original again.  The making of and vintage featurette are here, too; though the Q&A is gone, as is the Katrina bit, naturally.  88's original featurette isn't here either.  But we get some great, new interviews with co-producer J. Patrick Kelly III, a conversation between Sheldon and McCall, a fun one with actor Tom Arcuragi and a lengthy one with expert Stephen Thrower, which unlike the new commentary, you shouldn't pass over.  There's also a second trailer and a couple radio spots.  It has reversible cover art and was originally sold with a slipcover.

So, Grizzly is entertaining, but not what you'd call, you know, a good movie.  It's definitely worth watching once for the highlights, but beyond that, for me, it's the kind of movie you get as an impulse buy or not at all.  Maybe you see it cheap and pick it up on a lark, or include it in a big order when a site is having a sale...  For most viewers, I'd imagine whichever blu-ray is in your region will do.  But if you are seeking the full Grizzly experience, Severin is the answer in all departments.  Hold onto your older copies for their exclusive extras, but Severin has the best overall package; so there's really no need to get more than one edition of this.

Update Megaweek, Day 1: Terry Jones' Monty Python's Life of Brian

Like many of us, I've been revisiting the work of Python/ director Terry Jones since we lost him last week.  So let's do something in his memory and take a look at one of his most beloved films... one that has an interesting history on home video, but could also really use a shot in the arm in 2020: Monty Python's Life of Brian.

Update 4/22/26: Shot received!  Guys, I've been putting off the next Update Week for a while, and the backlog's only built up.  So welcome to the Update Megaweek, which is basically like any previous year's Update Week doubled.  Like always, I've got the most current UHDs and some of the oldest DVDs, from the most requested titles to discs I'm sure nobody but me will ever care about.  And to kick it off, I've got the brand new and very badly needed 4k restoration of The Life of Brian from Criterion.  And, at the same time, I've updated my page on The Dentist movies to include Trimark's original Dentist 2 DVD.

1979's Life of Brian is Monty Python's second film... or third, if you want to count And Now For Something Completely Different, but that's really just a compilation of the best skits from their series for the US market before their TV could be seen in the states.  I've read that Holy Grail is the Pythons' most popular film in America and Brian is in the UK.  For their part, the Pythons themselves seem pretty unified that this is their favorite, in large part because it's the film that has the most to say besides just being silly.

Not that it isn't silly, of course.  The premise is that, a baby was born just across from Jesus Christ, and he keeps getting mistaken for a messiah despite not being one.  The Pythons play almost all the major characters, including Graham Chapman as the titular Brian, Terry Jones as his mum, Michael Palin as Pontius Pilate, Terry Jones as Simon the naked holy man, John Cleese as Reg, leader of The Peoples' Front of Judea and Graham Chapman as Biggus Dickus.  This film has more of a cohesive narrative than the other Python films, although you might say that's immaterial so long as it's packed with great comic moments, which Brian absolutely is.  We get a few animated sequences from Terry Gilliam, though not so many as we'd seen in previous Python efforts, taking more on the role of the physical production and art design.  The locations, shot in Tunisia, where they were able to make use of the sets from 1977's Jesus Of Nazareth, are truly impressive and lend the outrageous comedy a remarkably credible backdrop.  And Eric Idle closes out the whole thing with what became his most famous and popular song, "Always Look On the Bright Side of Life."

Life of Brian debuted on DVD in 1999, with a widescreen but non-anamorphic, barebones DVD from Anchor Bay.  Very shortly afterwards, like just a few months later in 1999, Criterion reissued it as a now anamorphic special edition.  And that was the whole deal until it came time for an HD upgrade.  In 2008, Sony released their Immaculate Edition blu-ray, and that's been the sole go-to release until now, with the same edition essentially replicated in every region around the world.  But no more.  Now in 2026, Brian's back in Criterion's hands: restored in 4k and released on a proper UHD (there's also a 1080p BD option, natch) for 2026.  As they put it in their booklet, it's now presented "in all its holy glory."

1) 1999 AB DVD; 2) 1999 Criterion DVD; 3) 2008 Sony BD; 4) 2026 Criterion UHD.

So yeah, Anchor Bay's DVD is a pale, low res 1.84:1 image floating in a sea of non-anamorphic dead space.  I'm actually surprised it's not interlaced; it almost looks like it should be interlaced.  Criterion's DVD, then, is a still pretty pale, properly anamorphic 1.78:1 (despite claiming 1.85:1 on the case), with just the tiniest slivers of dead space in the overscan area.  You can see it includes more picture around all four sides, but particularly the bottom, no doubt due to its lifted 16x9 mattes.  Sony then mattes their blu back down to 1.85:1, losing a little along the sides with it.  It's also, thankfully, no longer so pale, though it looks like some of that's due to some artificial contrast boosting and a side effect of edge enhancement.  It's certainly the best of the three, but it's also clearly an old master that looks like maybe it was never even made to hold up on blu.  I mean, it's a 2008 blu, so what can you expect?  But even by those standards, it looks like detail is light and they tried to make up for that with some unfortunate tinkering.  It's not terribly terrible, I suppose... the grain is mostly, if gingerly, visible, and the haloing isn't super heavy.  But this is a film ready for a remaster if I've ever seen one.

Oh, thank goodness.  Criterion has gone back to the original 35mm camera negative (and, according to the booklet, "for some sections, a 35mm interpositive").  Grain is finally here and looking right.  And as you can see above, this film finally looks like film.  And look at that guard standing against the pillar in the second set of shots.  His skin looks weirdly splotchy on the blu, but now on the UHD, it's like his complexion cleared up.  Deeper blacks makes the contrast more appealing without actually crushing any detail in the shadows.  Highlights aren't blown out; and yes, that crappy edge enhancement haloing is gone.  Film damage has been cleaned up, too (note that dirt spot above the donkey in the sky of the first set of shots is finally gone).  In every way, this is the upgrade we've been asking for.

Audio-wise, both DVDs give us your basic mono track, with only Criterion offering optional subtitles.  Sony brings a whole bunch of language options, including French and Hungarian dubs and English, Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish, Thai (whew!) and Turkish subs.  But they've ditched the original mono track and now only give us 5.1 remixes, in both TrueHD and LPCM.

So that's another win in 2026.  We've got the original audio mix restored and in HD (DTS-HD) for the first time.  If you still want Sony's 5.1 remix, that's here, too, also in DTS-HD.  And, of course, there are optional English subtitles.

Anchor Bay just had the trailer, but Criterion packed their edition pretty nicely.   We start out with two audio commentaries, one by Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam and Eric Idle, and the other by John Cleese and Michael Palin.  Both provide a good mix of insight and laughs.  Then there's a collection of deleted scenes, one of which solves a small mystery that's always followed the film, and all of which have optional commentary.  And there's an excellent, vintage hour-long documentary, simply called The Pythons.  It's a BBC-made feature ostensibly on the Pythons overall, but it interviews the cast while they're on the set of Brian, so the film winds up being as much about the film as the rest of their career.  They also have the trailer, four radio spots, and an insert with notes by critic George Perry.

The Pythons.

The Pythons is interlaced and pretty fuzzy, presumably just taken from broadcast, which I guess is why Sony dropped it from their Immaculate Edition.  Because they've carried over all of the other Criterion extras.  And to their credit, they've come up with some new goodies as well, the best of which is a new, hour-long retrospective, The Story of Brian.  It's also quite well made, and fairly different from The Pythons.  It's great to have the new one, but I still miss the old one (which, for one major advantage, had access to Graham Chapman).  Some of the other extras are nice to have, but not so exciting.  There's an entire script read-through by the Pythons, which sounds neat, but it's awfully long and essentially all the same material as the film.  To be quite honest, I can't say I listened to the whole thing.  Besides that, they've added a photo gallery and a couple unrelated bonus trailers.

And now, happily, Criterion has brought us the best of both worlds.  Both the previously exclusive docs, and all the previous extras, are gathered together on Criterion's new 2-disc set.  And they've even recovered something new: Michael Palin's behind-the-scenes 8mm footage.  It's just over 13 minutes and silent but narrated by Palin.  And we get a 10-page, fold-out insert with notes by Bilge Ebiri (apparently George Perry can suck it, because Criterion didn't keep his).

So this is easily, easily, the new definitive edition: a substantial upgrade with all the features united, and even something new to sweeten the deal.  In fact, I'd go further than calling it definitive and say it's the only one worth having in your collection.