The Doors: Unbound and Dangerous Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		0.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.5

The Doors: Unbound and Dangerous Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 10, 2026

The Doors have been rather well served by Rhino in terms of hi res audio releases through the years, including previously reviewed efforts like The Doors: Immersed, The Doors: The Singles and The Best of The Doors, releases which may understandably contain some "recycled" material between them, but which are notable if only because there obviously isn't that much material from the band to even be released to begin with. In that regard Unbound and Dangerous may well be the most enticing yet for longtime fans of The Doors, since it offers at the very least a newly sequenced set of live tracks in unedited condition, though redacted versions appeared on The Doors' 1970 album Absolutely Live. Legendary engineer and producer Bruce Botnick has worked with surviving band members John Densmore and Robby Krieger to offer this appealing set of performances, some of which have a rather viscerally raw sounding Jim Morrison on vocals. The band is hugely energetic throughout this set of tunes.

The album's track list can be seen in the screenshots of the disc menu uploaded to accompany this review. More information about navigating the menu is available in the video section, below.

The Doors: Unbound and Dangerous Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

This is another Rhino release with a static menu, and one which, like many Rhino / WMG releases, has changing font colors depending on whether chapter skip or scrolling is selected on the remote. I've provided a few examples of various menu changes showing examples of both choices.

The Doors: Unbound and Dangerous Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Doors: Unbound and Dangerous features Dolby Atmos, DTS-HD Master Audio 4.0 and DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 options. Bruce Botnick provides an interesting introduction in the insert booklet which contains this brief but fun description:

To present this album, we went back to the original analog 8 track 15 ips tapes to create the Atmos, quadraphonic and stereo mixes. No A.I., just a true document of you are/were there.

The performances speak for themselves. Enjoy, and if listening in Atmos or quad, turn off the lights and be in the moment.

All three have definite listening pluses, with the stereo track probably pushing vocals forward the most, but with both of the surround tracks offering some rather wide imaging, even if a lot of the rear channel activity tends to be spill from either instruments or the at times rowdy audience (they break out into what sound like near riots a couple of times, and I for one am very curious to know why). The Atmos imaging often offers Jim kind of wafting above the instrumental foundation. Various solos, like the organ on Light My Fire are clearly engaging all the surround channels, but still can sound just slightly weighted toward the left, which, at least according to the album image included on the cover and menu, seems to be "directionally correct" for how the stage setup was. There is surprisingly excellent fidelity throughout and the low end in particular is very impressive on the Atmos track. In more good news, while there is the ability to navigate down through the track list to change the audio codecs at the bottom, you can actually just use the Audio button on your remote to toggle between the codecs, and best of all, the song doesn't start over, which is a good way to hear some of the mix differences in relatively quick succession.

The Doors: Unbound and Dangerous Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements on the disc. The insert booklet has the above mentioned introduction by Bruce Botnick, along with two kind of diametrically opposed paragraphs from John Densmore and Robby Krieger, the first of whom talks about Jim's "dangerous" qualities, and the second of whom asserts The Doors were never that dangerous.

The Doors: Unbound and Dangerous Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Doors: Unbound and Dangerous offers an "up close and personal" listening experience of what the band was like in live venues at the height of its fame (and/or infamy for some). The performances all have a really powerfully energetic current running through them and should certainly interest the band's fans. The Atmos and quad mixes are nicely spacious and very enjoyable. Highly recommended.