Rating: 
Summary: Your head is in the jet stream
Review: This documentary is really wonderful. But not wonderful for the glory of the conquest but showing just how deadly and treacherous this climb really is. Whether you are a wealthy wannabe or an experienced mountain climber it is beyond my conprehension why any sane person would want to endanger his or her life like that. Where's the glory in being drug up to the top like a sack of potatoes? It's almost sinful to play with your life in this way when there is no earthly reason to be there.
The camera work is breathtaking. But it was painful to watch those climbers virtually dying in front of our eyes. This NOVA is a real eye opener for respecting the one life you have been given.
Rating:
Summary: No Walk In The Park
Review: "Anyone can climb Everest. All you need is $70,000 and a Sherpa to drag you to the top." Not quite. Even with two of the best mountaineers in the world as guides (David Breashears and Ed Viesturs) AND the trusty Sherpa; young, fit David Carter almost died in his attempt. "Everest: the Death Zone" should be required watching for any Everest wannabe. The camera is unflinching while it pans the dead bodies like cautionary sentinels along the trail---the garbage strewn upper camps that look more like badly maintained junkyards than the most majestic mountain on earth---a traffic jam at 28,000 feet (are you seriously telling me I have spent all this money to get to one of the most remote places in the world, to be one with nature, and I'm in a TRAFFIC JAM? Yes.) The film has magnificent footage of the treacherous Khumbu Ice Falls showing horizontal ladders laid across yawning crevasses that must be traversed. (What I want to know is: Who lays and affixes the ladders?) This area is the most objectively difficult on Everest, and it is early in the ascent between Base Camp and Camp I. This means it has to be crossed, not once, but many times carrying supplies to the higher camps and adds exponentially to Everest's dangers. The camera work on higher reaches of Everest, including the summit is breathtaking. So what went wrong that put David Carter in peril of his life? This is the heart of the film: the effect on the human body of extreme altitude. In a nutshell, we are not designed to survive above 21,000 feet. No matter what your skills (or that of the ever-dependable Sherpa), you are vulnerable to hypoxia, pulmonary and cerebral edema, frostbite-all potentially lethal. To add to the danger, if you can't walk out, you will probably die. No one can carry you and there is no possibility of helicopter rescue if you are higher than 21,000 feet. You are without support and very alone. The film has a great deal of scientific explanation with graphs and visuals. Maybe too much for some viewers, but this is Nova after all. There are excellent close-up photos of high tech equipment and demonstrations of how it is used. The color is sharp and clear and the audio is first-rate. "Everest: The Death Zone" doesn't pull punches and has great integrity. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: No Walk In The Park
Review: "Anyone can climb Everest. All you need is $70,000 and a Sherpa to drag you to the top." Not quite. Even with two of the best mountaineers in the world as guides (David Breashears and Ed Viesturs) AND the trusty Sherpa; young, fit David Carter almost died in his attempt. "Everest: the Death Zone" should be required watching for any Everest wannabe. The camera is unflinching while it pans the dead bodies like cautionary sentinels along the trail---the garbage strewn upper camps that look more like badly maintained junkyards than the most majestic mountain on earth---a traffic jam at 28,000 feet (are you seriously telling me I have spent all this money to get to one of the most remote places in the world, to be one with nature, and I'm in a TRAFFIC JAM? Yes.) The film has magnificent footage of the treacherous Khumbu Ice Falls showing horizontal ladders laid across yawning crevasses that must be traversed. (What I want to know is: Who lays and affixes the ladders?) This area is the most objectively difficult on Everest, and it is early in the ascent between Base Camp and Camp I. This means it has to be crossed, not once, but many times carrying supplies to the higher camps and adds exponentially to Everest's dangers. The camera work on higher reaches of Everest, including the summit is breathtaking. So what went wrong that put David Carter in peril of his life? This is the heart of the film: the effect on the human body of extreme altitude. In a nutshell, we are not designed to survive above 21,000 feet. No matter what your skills (or that of the ever-dependable Sherpa), you are vulnerable to hypoxia, pulmonary and cerebral edema, frostbite-all potentially lethal. To add to the danger, if you can't walk out, you will probably die. No one can carry you and there is no possibility of helicopter rescue if you are higher than 21,000 feet. You are without support and very alone. The film has a great deal of scientific explanation with graphs and visuals. Maybe too much for some viewers, but this is Nova after all. There are excellent close-up photos of high tech equipment and demonstrations of how it is used. The color is sharp and clear and the audio is first-rate. "Everest: The Death Zone" doesn't pull punches and has great integrity. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Everest - The Death Zone
Review: A very interesting film that shows some of the mental incapacitance of being above 6000m. It is more of interest to those looking towards the mental rather than the physical side of climbing in the high regions. Just one note, the body that is shown in the fixed ropes is mistaken for Rob Hall, when it is in fact Bruce Herrod from the South African expedition of May 96. To be fair, the IMAX film on the subject of this tragic year gives more of the impact to the viewer.
Rating:
Summary: EXCELLENT DOCUMENTARY
Review: Awesome DVD, tremendous filming !!!. Ed Viesturs and David Brashears couldn't do a better job. This a must see documentary for everyone interested in climbing all levels. Jodie Foster's narration seemed to be more than adecuated to the details of the film. Every single aspect of climbing at such altitude is explained very well; the preparation of the team, how do people behave at different levels of altitude, the problem of oxygen and the experiments taken every step allow us to realize that is not an easy thing to attempt climbing on this mountains. Compared to the IMAX movie wich is also an excellent piece of art, this one reveals other points of views and criteria that in another film you won't get. The only real question will be if the place signaled by the climbers was the real spot where Rob Hall spent his last moments. From what I have read in books and in another publications, it seems that the place was a little bit different. Never the less, this DVD is a high quality film. Highly Recomended !!!!!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Great movie about high altitude changes in the climber
Review: Focus on scientific questions with excellent footage of summit attempt. Nice visual for someone who read either 'Into thin air' or 'the Climb'
Rating:
Summary: Everest:The Death Zone DVD
Review: I am not a climber, but the history and the current people climbing Everest still is an interest to me. I brought the DVD over to a friend's, who clearly at the start wasn't interested in it. About half way through, he was watching intently. It reminds us most real drama happens in real life. And you learn a few things too. I'd recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting DVD
Review: I bought this DVD because I am really interested in Mount Everest and the people who climb it. It is interesting (even slightly amusing) to watch the climbers try to answers questions in rapid fire sucession at 29,000 feet elevation (with 1/3 the oxygen level). Ed Viesturs, (considered by many to be America's finest high-altitude climber) missed a question or two. David Breashears (another one of America's finest high-altitude climbers (and cinematographers)) does a great job behind the camera with some spectacular shots. Like all Everest stories, this one has it's share of close calls, but I won't give away the story. By the way, we do not get to see Rob Hall's body in the movie as the reviewer below (David S. Richard) incorrectly states. What you DO see is the place where Rob Hall's body is buried on the South Summit(under about 6 feet of snow). Interesting stuff nonetheless as Rob Hall was quickly becoming a legend in his own right as a guide on Everest.
Rating: 
Summary: Good but not really quite what I expected
Review: I have 7 Everest DVD's and this one was not really as I expected. It was more clinical and of medical type interest and did not have to be Mount Everest to show the effects of low oxygen. They could have used any place above or around 8,000 meters. Frustrating in some senses because I felt a lack of Everest footage and views about the Death Zone etc., as well as being a fairly short film, sort of left me feeling wanting and slighty cheated. However, it goes fairly well with the collection since some of the other DVD's fil in the gaps.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent: realistic, kind and human
Review: I love this video! It is one of my most favorite ones ever. For me, too, this is the most realistic video about 8K mountains available in the mass market; moreover, it is very kind and very human.
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