Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.0

Dead Ringers Blu-ray Movie Review

Here's looking at you (two).

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 18, 2016

There have been any number of films which feature dastardly siblings, including some where the brothers or sisters are twins. While it’s certainly possible to craft a creepy film about non-identical siblings (the two mid-sixties Robert Aldrich efforts, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte — which admittedly features cousins — spring to mind), there’s something especially disturbing about twins, perhaps reaching down to a subliminal level of genetic identity that most of us non- twins aren’t able to fathom, and therefore fear. A comprehensive list of so-called “evil twin” movies would take up considerable bandwidth, but a cursory overview might include lesser remembered efforts like two films from 1946 which (separately) featured Aldrich co-stars Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland, A Stolen Life and The Dark Mirror, and better remembered outings like Brian De Palma’s Sisters, and a 1964 effort which, like What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte and A Stolen Life, starred Bette Davis, Dead Ringer (some might waggishly argue that one Bette Davis was probably more than enough for most, rather than these multiple versions). Dead Ringer gets pluralized (so to speak) in one of the most memorable “evil twin” films ever made, David Cronenberg’s 1988 opus Dead Ringers. Star Jeremy Irons, playing twin gynecologists Elliot and Beverly (a male name in many British societies) Mantle, had already amassed a rather impressive resume by the time he came to Dead Ringers, having done stellar work in such films as The French Lieutenant's Woman and The Mission, but his turn(s) in Dead Ringers elevated his status even further, winning him several regional acting awards but rather surprisingly not even an Academy Award nomination.

Rather unbelievably, aspects of the Mantle twins’ lives as detailed in Dead Ringers, including their gynecological careers, are actually culled from a real life story involving Stewart and Cyril Marcus, two Manhattan based brothers who were found dead together in 1975 in an apparently trash strewn apartment in New York City’s upper east side, not typically the site of such scandals (let alone such inattention to housekeeping). Dead Ringers attempts to flesh out (no pun intended, given the film’s emphasis on horrifying gynecological instruments) this tale, beginning with a kind of funny prelude that finds the twins as young adolescents beginning to think about sex, only to be rebuffed in their approach to a neighborhood girl in a rather memorable if scabrous way. The film then segues forward to the twins’ student days, including their invention of a tool to distend the uterus of corpses (why a corpse’s uterus would need to be distended is not exactly gotten into). Already the film is trafficking in all sorts of disturbing concepts and even imagery, something that will only become more acute as the story progresses.

It turns out their bizarre gynecological device makes the brothers famous (and, apparently, wealthy) before they graduate from college, but there’s a really interesting aside in the scene documenting the college’s banquet honoring the twins for the invention, a fete that only Elliot, the more extroverted of the pair, attends. When he returns to Bev, who’s huddled in a private office, he tells his brother, “You should have been there.” Bev responds simply, “I was”, a throwaway line that perhaps suggests the kind of psychic tether that bonds the twins in The Other, yet another foray into “evil twin” territory. That connection becomes increasingly relevant once it also becomes clear that the Mantles, now adults operating their own gynecological clinic specializing in helping women with fertility problems, indulge in the kind of “bait and switch” shenanigans that younger twins often do, each pretending to be the other one when it suits their fancy.

When a famous actress named Claire Niveau (Genevieve Bujold) comes to the clinic for help, Bev is shocked to discover she has a rather rare internal deformity, one he can’t wait to share with Elliot. In a certain kind of elision the film continues to exploit, Elliot simply goes into the waiting room and examines Claire, and it’s obvious she believes she’s with the same doctor as before. Another kind of abrupt segue shows Elliot having dinner with Claire, and it’s soon revealed that Bev took Elliot’s place at a function Elliot was supposed to go to, and that Elliot has bedded Claire in the meantime. Troublingly (to say the least), Elliot insists that Bev pretend to be him at a meeting with Claire the next day so that he, too, can “sample the goods”.

There are a number of fascinating if occasionally perplexing twists and turns the plot then takes, and to keep the shocks spoiler free, suffice it to say that Bev ends up falling for Claire, but also gets sucked into her dependence on prescription pain pills. That then leads to a completely odd and discomfiting kinda sorta three way, where both brothers interact with Claire but she is (initially at least) unaware that there are two men chasing after her, not just one. (One thing that has always kind of bothered me about Dead Ringers, even if it’s a minor point—wouldn’t any woman coming to the Mantle Clinic, evidently an institution of some renown, know there were twins in charge?)

While I’m not entirely sure that this and other plot elements in Dead Ringers really completely hang together, there’s no denying the almost hallucinatory spell the film ends up weaving. The screenplay by Cronenberg and Norman Snider might have spent a bit more time exploring sexual repression, perhaps utilizing the whole “interior” and yet obviously inherently sexual aspects of gynecology as a symbol, something that might have made Bev’s plight more resonant. As it stands, the film is an extremely unsettling character study of one of the most bizarre examples of a ménage à trois imaginable. While the Irons characters are of course the unavoidable focal element of the story, and Irons does absolutely amazing work delineating the two brothers, there’s also a fascinating, damaged and maybe even slightly psychotic character in Claire herself, and Bujold also does excellent work detailing her psychological issues. One of the most interesting aspects to Dead Ringers is that it’s never really clear whether Elliot or Beverly is the “evil twin”, or whether they share that particular ignominy equally if in different ways.

Dead Ringers Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Dead Ringers is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout! Factory, with AVC encoded 1080p transfers in 1.78:1 and 1.67:1 (as measured by our in house system), not 1.66:1 as advertised. Shout! is touting the 1.67:1 version as a new 2K scan (one assumes from an IP), and in what is described as "director David Cronenberg's preferred aspect ratio." If our forum is any indication, this release is going to create some controversy from a number of angles, but instead of focusing on what is "correct" (for I frankly don't feel qualified to offer an authoritative opinion absent the unlikely occurrence of Cronenberg or cinematographer Peter Suschitzky chiming in to clarify), I'm simply going to keep this analysis to what I consider to be observable data. Shout! hasn't included any information on the provenance of the 1.78:1 master, but it looks like it's older, as evidenced by a kind of harsh digital appearance at times and some coarser grain than is seen in the 1.67:1 version (something that might argue toward sharpening having been applied). There are obvious color temperature differences between the 1.78:1 and 1.67:1 versions, with the 1.78:1 version bathed in bluish tones, and the 1.67:1 version offering a substantially warmer (and to my eyes, more natural looking) palette. While the 1.67:1 version has (again to my eyes) a more appealing color space, it's also fairly soft looking, especially when compared to what may be the artificially sharpened 1.78:1 version. Some of our forum members have expressed concern over actual framing inconsistencies, and there is ample headroom in some of the 1.67:1 version's shots. That said, I'd personally caution against using an old DVD (even a vaunted Criterion disc) as being an infallible guide, so, again, I'm not going to opine on what's "correct" and what isn't, and simply state that there are clear framing differences between the two versions on this disc (irrespective of the differing aspect ratios), as well as the old Criterion DVD. Both versions here suffer from at least occasional vertical wobble, something that tends to be the case more with older masters, though Shout!'s Cliff MacMillan has stated on our forum that the label attempted to "smooth" out this anomaly in the 1.67:1 version. My bottom line assessment here is that both of the versions on this two disc set have their own separate issues, but that from a color temperature and grain resolution standpoint, the 1.67:1 version struck me as the better looking of the two, though it's also quite a bit softer looking than the 1.78:1 version. I'd rate the 1.78:1 version at around 3.25 and the 1.67:1 version at around 3.75, leading to the average score shown above.

As should hopefully be obvious, I've tried to recreate the same screenshots from both versions, since I'm a firm believer that individual compare and contrasts are often much more beneficial than my halting attempts at description. The 1.78:1 version is represented in screenshots 1 - 9, and the 1.67:1 version in screenshots 10 - 18.

Dead Ringers Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Both versions of Dead Ringers feature DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0 mixes. While the 5.1 mixes are identical on both versions, a member in our forum has posted that the channels are reversed between the two versions in their stereo iterations, something that does appear to be the case, as evidenced by sometimes subtle positioning in a track that is frankly not all that directional to begin with. For those interested, though, listen to the scene where Elliot brings the gold plated "device" back to Bev and notice the different placement of the footsteps. That said, I personally find this a rather minor annoyance, since the stereo track doesn't feature extremely wide separation in any case, and my preference is the surround track one way or the other, since (among other things) it offers a much more spacious accounting of Howard Shore's elegant and elegiac score. Fidelity is fine throughout both tracks, with no signs of dropouts or other damage, and with dialogue cleanly and clearly presented throughout.

Dead Ringers Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One (1.78:1 Version)

• Audio Commentary with Writer William Beard, Author of The Artist as Monster: The Cinema of David Cronenberg is a new commentary. Beard gets into Cronenberg's filmography while also exploring some of the themes of this film.


• Audio Commentary with Actor Jeremy Irons

Disc Two (1.67:1 Version)

• Cary's Story with Actress Heidi Von Palleske (1080p; 19:05) is an appealing interview with the actress, who recalls how strangely light the set was during the shoot despite the darkness of the material.


• Working Artist with Actor Stephen Lack (1080p; 23:56) begins with one of the most patently bizarre "readings" you're likely to experience, before going on to interview the Cronenberg favorite.


• Connecting Tissues with Make Up Effects Artist Gordon Smith (1080p; 19:16) gets into some of his history with prosthetics and other effects and his history with Cronenberg.


• Double Vision with Director of Photography Peter Suschitsky (1080p; 12:41) gets into some of the challenges the film had as well as Suschitsky's assessment of Cronenberg's career.


• Vintage Interviews (1080p; 17:03) include Jeremy Irons, David Cronenberg, producer Marc Boyman and co-writer Norman Snider.


• Vintage Behind the Scenes Featurette (1080p; 7:14)


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1:36)

Dead Ringers Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

My hunch is Dead Ringers is going to be yet another hotly debated release, but my personal opinion is the 1.67:1 version is the better looking of the pair presented in this set, even if it has its own issues. As is usual with Scream Factory releases, the supplementary package is quite appealing and may help concerned consumers overcome qualms about the actual transfers. With caveats duly noted, Dead Ringers comes Recommended.