ADDITION: Celluloid Dreams - Region 'A' - Blu-ray Region FREE 4K UHD (October 2026): Celluloid Dreams have released Paolo Cavara's Black Belly of the Tarantula to Blu-ray and 4K UHD. Celluloid Dreams' four-disc Limited Edition of Black Belly of the Tarantula starts with a 4K UHD presentation in HDR10, from a new 4K restoration of the original camera negative, offering the film in both its original full-frame 1.37:1 ratio and a 1.85:1 widescreen version. We were unable to take captures from the 4K UHD, but with its higher resolution and HDR10 grading, it is the optimal way to see this restoration, offering even deeper shadows and more vivid color than the Blu-rays. Those Blu-rays are two dual-layered discs carrying both the international cut (1:37:53) and the shorter U.S. version (1:27:57) - not seamlessly-branched, one disc at 1.85:1 and the other at 1.37:1. The two discs are technically equivalent, and on each, the international cut's video bitrate is marginally higher than the U.S. version's. The improvement over the 2015 Blue Underground DVD, reviewed in 2015 HERE, is dramatic. The old SD transfer's bright, flattened timing is gone; night scenes, like the car interior or the killer standing over his paralyzed victim, are now dark and moody with rich black levels, and daylight scenes have shed the DVD's yellow-brown cast. The 1080P image has a thick, natural layer of film grain with a shade of blue-teal. It doesn't have the edge enhancement visible on the DVD. Close-ups reveal pores, eyelashes, and the individual strands of hair around the killer's needle, and colors, especially the reds of Bouchet's dress and Auger's blouse, are rich without being pushed. The full-frame version adds headroom but loses nothing essential, so viewers can choose either; the widescreen tightens the compositions effectively. The main and end titles, sourced from a print, are matched to the negative closely enough that the change is barely noticeable. Marcello Gatti's cinematography (The Salamander, What?, The Battle of Algiers) leans on heavy shadow, cold interiors, and glossy salon spaces. Earlier home video transfers brightened all of this into a flat daylight look - thank you Celluloid Dreams for correcting this.

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

The audio is also a large step up from the DVD's lossy Dolby. Both cuts include the restored Italian track and the English dub as 16-bit DTS-HD Master mono tracks, plus an "Unrestored" Italian track in lossy DTS for purists who want to hear the original audio before cleanup. The restored Italian and English tracks are clean, with no hiss or dropouts. The Italian is more natural, especially for Giannini, and clears up a few story points the English dub muddles. Ennio Morricone's (Hitch-Hike, The Key, For a Few Dollars More, A Fistful of Dollars, Violent City, Grand Slam Revolver, The Great Silence, Who Saw Her Die?, The Black Belly of the Tarantula, The Fifth Cord, Luna, Danger Diabolik, Two Mules For Sister Sara, A Bullet for the General, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, The French Conspiracy, U Turn, Stay As You Are, Short Night of Glass Dolls,) score, with Edda Dell'Orso's haunting wordless soprano, is one of his finest giallo scores, and it sounds excellent in lossless form. There are optional English and English SDH subtitles; these are white and newly translated, replacing the DVD's yellow subtitles. On-screen text is subtitled automatically. The Blu-ray discs are Region 'A'-locked.

Celluloid Dreams's 4K UHD is, like all from this format, Region FREE.

Celluloid Dreams loads this 4K UHD package with extras. The 'International' version on the feature discs includes a new audio commentary by film critic Guido Henkel, which covers the restoration process, the film's locations, the cast, and the editing choices around the ending. The fourth disc holds the remaining extras, beginning with an 85-minute "Grindhouse" version taken from a well-worn Italian 35mm theatrical print (see sample below,) with optional English subtitles. Legendary soprano Edda Dell'Orso discusses her training and her long collaboration with Morricone in a new 25-minute interview, "Made-up Words." In "The World of Paolo Cavara," the director's son, Pietro Cavara, spends 22 minutes on his father's career, from the Mondo Cane experience through his narrative features. There are two new video essays, both running just over 20 minutes. Andy Marshall-Roberts' "What a Tangled Web We Weave" traces the film's place in the giallo lineage after Bava and Argento. Favorite Howard S. Berger's "The Uncanny Peephole" examines the voyeurism in Cavara's work. Ported over is the 1/4 hour interview with Lorenzo Danon, the son of producer and screenwriter Marcello Danon, from the Blue Underground DVD, along with a 5-minute archival interview with Pietro Cavara. The disc also has the English trailer in a new 4K scan, the German trailer (now subtitled), the U.S. TV double-feature spot with The Weekend Murders in restored and "grindhouse" versions, a short sample of optical blurring from the Japanese VHS, and a 63-image gallery. The Limited Edition packaging adds an 80-page booklet with essays by James Branscome and JA Kerswell and then-and-now location photographs by Andrea Girolami, plus 16 reprints of the original publicity photos.