Two days ago a Creature From The Black Lagoon 3D Bluray disc, included in Universal’s Classic Monsters Collection box set, put out bad information and caused my expensive Oppo Bluray player to suffer a major freakout.

I popped the disc in and almost immediately my screen was flooded with alien digital data — ugly noise composed of red, blue and white worms — and an awful buzzing sound. I took the disc out but noticed right away that it had temporarily ruined my Oppo’s ability to deliver clean images on other discs. I had to call tech support and switch out the HDMI cables and go to default and lose all my digital download settings. Everything was fixed after about a 45 minute process, but what a mess.

The Oppo doesn’t play 3D, but the Creature disc offers a 2D option. I had just popped in another 3D Bluray, Warner Home Video’s Dial M for Murder, and the menu offered this option. I naturally presumed this would repeat with the Creature 3D Bluray. Nope. I was told by Universal that nobody else has experienced this problem — fine. But why, then, did the Dial M disc play without issue while the Creature disc didn’t?