I recently revisited my Image DVD of CONTAMINATION and, struck by some odd sense of nostalgia, decided to pop in my old Westlake Entertainment DVD of ALIEN CONTAMINATION. And it wouldn't play, or more precisely my DVD player said it couldn't read the disc. Now the DVD looks pristine. There's not a scratch on it and I viewed it only twice, and the second time was when I purchased the Image DVD to do a quickie comparison of one or two scenes.
Curious I popped the DVD into my computer. Again it wouldn't read it at all. It was like there wasn't even a disc in the drive. I have a few other Westlake DVDs which has me a bit worried. Not much though since, in most cases, I've been able to upgrade to 'official' releases. Yet, so far, my ALIEN CONTAMINATION DVD seems to be the only one affected. Which is a shame since it was technically a different version.
But now I am left wondering what caused the disc to suddenly just stop working. Not only that but what about my other Westlake DVDs. Will they suffer from this same mysteries "DVD rot"? Has anyone encountered anything like this with older budget DVDs in their collection?




