NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Camera Obscura Blu-ray (September 2022): Camera Obscura have transferred Grigori Kromanov's Dead Mountaineer's Hotel to Blu-ray. It is cited as being from a "New Restoration of the film". 'The film has been restored as part of the Estonian film 100 program. The picture was restored by Giuseppe di Giorgio (Digital Film Finland OY).'

It looks quite strong on Blu-ray with only some occasional softness that appears to be inherent. I suspect the black levels have been slightly boosted but there isn't much evidence in the form of digitization. Grain is very evident and the textures are consistent. Close-ups can be crystal clear and colors rich. There is frequent depth and the 1080P image quality is highly pleasing bordering on impressive. It's on a dual-layered disc with a max'ed out bitrate.

NOTE: We have added 62 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Camera Obscura use a linear PCM 2.0 channel track (16-bit) in the original Estonian language with an optional German DUB. Dead Mountaineer's Hotel has surprisingly few aggressive sequences - a handful that come through with modest depth - more to the synthesizer score by Sven Grünberg. He was a pioneer of electronic music in Estonia and this was his first feature film work. It really adds a 70's feel and its coldness augment the film's building mysteries. It works well for the realization of Dead Mountaineer's Hotel sounding clean in the uncompressed transfer. There may be some post-dubbing in the film. Camera Obscura offer optional English and German subtitles on their Region FREE Blu-ray.

The Camera Obscura Blu-ray offers a 20-minute 'Making of' featurette (with optional English subtitles) that includes interviews with the participants, the German title opening sequence and the handsome media book package has an essay in German by Chris Schinke. A second disc PAL DVD is included.

I would have loved a commentary for this genre film by Tim Lucas, Troy Howarth, Berger-Mitchell-Thompson or Kat Ellinger + Samm Deighan.

Grigori Kromanov's Dead Mountaineer's Hotel is notable for being based on brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's 1970 Soviet science fiction novel. Their best-known novel, Piknik na obochine, translated into English as Roadside Picnic. Andrei Tarkovsky adapted that novel to the screen as his 1979 film Stalker. Dead Mountaineer's Hotel even has Jüri Järvet who was in both Stalker and Grigori Kozintsev's King Lear. Because of an avalanche, the telltale-70's designed hotel (minus the lava-lamps) has its guests immersed in a classic locked-room mystery later adding a supernatural element involving aliens and androids. There is a definite kitsch factor going on here. It can be a bit confusing with many characters and the sci-fi angle angle can feel forced, but I loved the atmosphere and eastern euro vibe. Thanks to Camera Obscura for their Blu-ray release and I certainly encourage like-minded genre fans to indulge. My only further comment is 'let's see more!'

Gary Tooze