With the temperature dropping, Antarctica may be the last place some viewers want to spend visiting onscreen, but a couple of South Pole documentaries that have just hit DVD shelves are worth checking out.

Werner Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World will please fans of Herzog and nature films alike, as the famously eccentric director explores Antarctica and, in particular, the “professional dreamers” who live and work there. Herzog delivers typically hilarious quotes in his trademark deadpan voice (“I loathe the sun on both my celluloid and my skin,” he muses, and during an interview asks “Is there such a thing as insanity among penguins?”), but it’s the abstract beauty of the nature images he captures, the invariably odd stories of the Antarctic inhabitants, and the conversations on the philosophical underpinnings of natural science that make the film truly memorable.

Jean Lemire’s The Last Continent, meanwhile, follows a group of scientists and filmmakers on a nine-month research trip around the South Pole. Much more prosaic in both form and content, it’s nonetheless full of deep-frozen adventure and lots of nature footage for those nostalgic for Hinterland Who’s Who.

And speaking of ’70s Canadiana, some who grew up in that era might recall with fondness The Hilarious House of Frightenstein, a truly demented kids’ program from the mind of Hamilton’s Billy Van. For those who missed out, imagine (if you can) a Mad magazine-meets-Ed Wood pastiche of old-school horror clichés, cheap educational segments and corny vaudevillian humour, all held together with psychedelic editing and a lot of heart.

Horror icon Vincent Price narrated the show in rhyming couplets, and almost every other character was played by Van—my personal favourite being The Wolfman, who would simply play records and dance around in front of a cheap early-video-effects screen. Word was that the Frightenstein master tapes had been erased, but Anchor Bay has compiled a box set of nine episodes plus a short documentary. It’s a must-see for fans of bizarre pop-cultural oddities.