Night Of The Living Dead DVD Retrospective

[JohnIan101]

PART II: THE REMAKES - A1

Welcome back. This week's "Living Dead" reflection takes us on a trip to a familiar, yet different farmhouse. Today we cover the NOTLD remakes. Because of size issues, this is broken up into three parts.

Since this was made after 1982 I have access to various stats.

Our first redo is "George A. Romero's Night Of The Living Dead". The feature opened on October 19th, 1990. It was made with a budget of $4,200,000 (estimated) and grossed over 5.8 million during its U.S. theatrical run. The movie opened number six at the box office, the following week it dropped to number fourteen.

The feature opened against "Quigley Down Under", "Ghost", "Memphis Belle" and "Goodfellas".

I saw this on opening day, still have my ticket stub. I'm anal. Some things about me; I only see movies in theaters on opening day - I like the rush of a fresh audience and I keep my ticket stubs.

It started with "Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade", May 24th, 1989.

That theater has long disappeared into history. The building was turned into a high end, consumer electronic store. Bought a few laser discs there back in the day. And now?

That store died in 2011, a victim of the bad economy. It's a cool looking building. Would take a lot to renovate it, but it would make a really cool large house. Keep one of the smaller screening rooms and turn it into... a home theater. Sorry, reminiscing. Saw a good chuck of the movies in my youth there.

This building has now becoming the fortified offices of a repo foreclosure company. I'm not joking about it being fortified, looks like a prison. They're the guys who force you out and clean out houses for the banks.

Moon don't look friendly.



Released on October 6th, 1999 from Columbia TriStar Home Video for $24.95 was the special edition DVD (ISBN# 0-7678-2783-X). It came in a common DVD case, normal wraparound.

There was an insert, a two page booklet; production notes and chapter listing, twenty-eight of them. This title was re-released some years later, I'll get to that in a few.

The motion picture is eighty-eight minutes long.

- - -

Extras:

* Newly remastered print
* Commentary: director Tom Savini
* "The Dead Walk: Remaking A Classic" making-of featurette (full screen, 24:52 minutes)
* Talent Files
* Theatrical Trailer (full screen)
* Additional Trailer: "The Tingler" (full screen, black & white, 1959)

- - -

Audio:

* Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
* Dolby Digital 2.0 (mono; Portuguese dub)

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NOTES/REVIEW

There are subtitles in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean and Thai. The odd thing is, the English subtitles is auto on when the film starts, you have to turn them off.

DVD is double sided and presents the movie in anamorphic widescreen on S-A, full screen S-B. The extras are identical on each side. Too bad they couldn't include more. The home video for "Wrong Turn" (2003), same deal - double sided, but S-A and S-B had different extras.

NOTLD disc labels are reversed, full screen is wide and vise versa.

The commentary is solid, Savini talked mostly throughout. Various things pointed out such as the name of the home owner is "M. Celeste". As in the Mary Celeste, yes that Celeste.

Bought from Best Buy for ten bucks, around 2004. For me the featurette just scratches the surfaces. My favorite part was the merging of 1968 footage with 1990, the cemetery zombie that breaks the car's window, quite seamless.

The making-of shows a few poor looking deleted scenes, culled from a VHS tape. They had to make cuts to get an R rating. The original MPAA pass resulted in an X. The lost bit that sticks out is when Tom Bitner (William Butler), Judy Rose Larsen (Katie Finneran) and Ben (Tony Todd) are in the pickup going for gas. Tom is in the flatbed and shoots a zombie, point blank range with his shotgun, its head ceased to exist in a shower of blood.

This title was re-released by Sony Picture Home Entertainment on September 27th, 2005 for $19.94. This has the very same ISBN number. There are four important differences...

1. This is a single sided disc; anamorphic widescreen only
2. It fixes the problem with the auto English subtitles
3. Excludes the booklet.
4. The wraparound is different in the back; same images, but gone is the special features listings and of course now reads Sony Picture Home Entertainment.

All the features from the first pressing.

Ended up using a two disc transparent DVD case. The newer wraparound on the outside with the older cover showing on the inside. Disc one becoming the widescreen only DVD.

This needs is a deluxe edition; longer gorier version, commentary with the cast, production artwork (would love to see that, some of the early drafts on the zombies), home videos, storyboards, bloopers and more featurettes on the making. Better remastered picture and sound. Plus something else?

Can't say for certain... the DVD has an item listed as 'Trailer', the thing is - it feels like a teaser. Trailers tend to be around two minutes or so long. This thing clocks at 1:09 (including the green MPAA rating screen). It feels wrong, teasers are roughly a minute in length.

A big point was gingerly mentioned; Savini had trouble making the movie. Not from the Hollywood end, but from the local mob. They had their teeth in the production. It's only mentioned once, probably for good reason. And maybe that's why we won't get that better version. Dogs best left sleeping.

This was an enjoyable, some have gone as far as saying this equals Romero's version. Can't disagree. It was the first picture to introduce me to Tony Todd. I can't imagine him NOT being Ben.



Barbara (Patricia Tallman) is easy on the eyes. I'm not into short haired girls, but she definitely an exception. Glad she made it beyond the massacre. Actress Katie Finneran as Judy Rose in the background.

Finneran played Sharon Tyler on Fox's "Wonderfalls" (2004), the older sister to Jaye (Caroline Dhavernas).

What shines is the zombie effects. The gaunt, bald fellow who pops through the window (Jay McDowell). I remember seeing that for the first time. My mouth was wide open.

How the hell? 'They're shooting him, skin is breaking, but it's not regular squibs. I see flesh.'

Outstanding!



He looked so freaky, yellowish, skinny, disturbing. As with the half burnt zombie from "Dawn Of The Dead" (1978), this guy became iconic.

There is a weak point, Johnnie (Bill Mosley). Not like that. He was fine. I'm talking about his death. The dummy head that hits the tombstone - breaking the neck, looked too fake.

The problem was it lingered a second too long.

Should've been a very quick cut. Boom! Dead.



The DVD cover, passable. CGI zombies? Yeah, I know, the cover foreshadows things to come. Granted the ghoul with the open maw is traditional drawing.

Cover works, gets the message across, true. But why?

The film's poster was WAY better and ominous.

They should've gone with that.



I have this too, the laser disc, a single disc release (CLV only). It streeted on April 11th, 1991 for $34.95 (#77176) from RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video. In full screen, the horror (no chapters!). The only extra is that same, so called 'trailer'.

An issue I have is with the cover (beyond the lack of chapters and not in widescreen). It gets the job done, but gives away the ending - zombified Ben. Okay, fine - everybody knows that he dies in the end. But since this was a remake, it could've gone a different route as it did with Barbara. What if newbies saw this?

The surprise is gone. Anyhow, the cover IS superior to the DVD's.

Who was the hotter MILF, McKee Anderson or Marilyn Eastman as Helen Cooper? Gonna side with Anderson. I was going to include Johanna Black from the next remake, thought about it... nah. She was perfect for that interpretation and leave it at that, though she seems like a cool person to party with - hilarious.

Okay - why does the dead woman with the doll look like she just broke major foul wind?

- - -

The apocalypse cause was never given. There's been speculation, but no definitive answer(s). As it should; the world came to an end, the reason why at this point is purely trivial - not much you can do about it.

The back of the DVD says different...

Seven strangers are trapped in an isolated farmhouse while cannibalistic zombies - awaken from death by the return of a radioactive space probe - wage a relentless attack, killing (and eating) everyone in their path.

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Often asked; why did Ben turn if he wasn't bitten?

This event; the contagion is airborne. From this point forward - everyone who dies (regardless how) will get back up and feast on the living. It has contaminated our ecosystem. If you're bitten or scratched, you receive a huge dose of the virus which is lethal. Otherwise it's sit dormant, waiting...

Get gnaws at once more next Thursday, if you DARE!