Night Of The Living Dead DVD Retrospective

[JohnIan101]

PART III: ANTIPATHY - B



Released on September 7th, 2004 from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment for $14.98 was the colorized edition (UPC-A# 0 24543 11970 8). It came in a regular DVD case. I believe this is still in print.

The DVD streeted against "The Island At The Top Of The World: 30th Anniversary Edition", "Resident Evil: Deluxe Edition", "Alias: The Complete Third Season" and "Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles" (NBC mini-series; January 27th - 29th, 1980).

Bought in December of 2011 from B]Ebay[/B] for this project. Well... an excuse. It's been on my list for a few years, now part of my collection.

There is a double sided insert; chapter listing (with colorized stills), sixteen of them; the other side is a variant of the DVD cover. There's something about the chapters, I'll cover it later.

The motion picture is ninety-six minutes long.

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Extras:

* Newly colorized print
* Black and white version
* Commentary: Mike Nelson of "Mystery Science Theater 3000"
* "Separated At Death" non-game
* Theatrical Trailers (colorized)
* Additional Trailers: "Carnival Of Souls" (full screen, colorized, 1962) and "The Flesh Eaters" (full screen, black & white, 1964)

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Audio:

* Dolby Digital 2.0 (mono, both editions)
* Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (colorized)
* DTS (colorized)

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NOTES/REVIEW

There are no subtitle options.

The DVD is not dubbed in any language(s).



Frowned by purists. Not by me.

The big question... how's the colorization? I would say, impressive. If you are expecting some kind of technicolor experience, you WILL BE disappointed.

The colors are muted, but defined. No edges, quite nice.

I'm old enough to remember in 1986, Hal Roach Studios released the first colorized attempt on home video - cassettes.



It was rather BIG news at the time.

NOTLD was one of the first films to be injected with color. Rented from a store that no longer exist, the pharmacy next door bought up the space - now their storeroom.

That was amateurish; all the colors bled, no rotoscoping - early digital. Plus the pigment sucked; all the zombies were this green, pea soup hue. Now look decent; gray wth a slight green tone.

There was an alleged second color release in 1997 from Anchor Bay Entertainment. Have not seen nor can I find any information. I had been to their website. Their catalog only goes back to March of 1998 (in 2011). Everybody appears to have copied the info from Wikipedia.

Checked my archives - squat. As far as I can tell, no DVD released in '97, dead end. There is a minor possibility; this colorized release could be VHS only.

They did release a couple titles, on cassette. One of them was "Curse Of The Black Widow" (ABC TV movie; September 16th, 1977; a Dan Curtis production). So until I read different - alleged.

The 2004 color job was done by Off Color Films. But the print used... Don't know; the video appears to have contrast problems, maybe this is because of the colorization process. But even then, the black and white version shouldn't have that affliction. There are some specks here and there. A dark vertical line across the screen from time to time.

Grain, not so much.

Fine details are missing, washed out, bleached.

The stuff that happens at night have a surreal, violet appearance. This might be part of the process, perhaps it can't handle the lack of color.

Would love to see this redone with the print from the 40th Anniversary. Plus the technical advancement since '04, could look incredible. And yeah, the TV reports are still in black and white.



There is an instance of a bleed, not color, but over lapping images; little Miss Barbra's coat was an algorithm victim.

Video appears to be zoomed in, one reviewer called it a 10% video loss. I've seen the comparisons, I agree.

What's curious is that the framing changes throughout the film; for some scenes there are boarders around the picture, some times not, sometimes just the sides.

Very odd indeed.



The color scheme was up to them. As you can see in Part I - A (bts photos), there were some color photos that could've been used for reference. Different colors were used on clothes. Ben's shirt was slightly pink, not light blue. Tom's tee isn't red, it's light blue. Harry shirt was light blue, not gray; his tie is sort of the correct color though.

As previously mentioned, I don't have a sound system. So my audio review is basic. What I can say is the sound is a big improvement over the 30th Anniversary - which sounded artificial. The first time NOTLD presented in DTS.

Commentary?

Lame. Not funny, if you're into dull humor, then this is a winner. I couldn't get through the whole thing; maybe a quarter, then gave up.

"Separated At Death" game isn't. It's a ghoul still, then a picture of a celebrity who looks like that zombie. There is no choice OR anything game related. ???

Both trailers are colorized, the first was altered for the new colored feature, the second is the original - in color. The reason; "The Flesh Eaters" trailer is here is because Bill Hinzman had a role in the feature.

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'04 was re-packaged in 2009 by Legend Films (UPC# 8 44503 00134 4) for $9.95. The new cover still showcases the '04 cover without "The Classic Is Now In Deadly Color!" text on the top. The re-release has a new commentary by Mike Nelson with Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy; now called "Rifftrax: Night Of The Living Dead".

All the extras from the '04 release was cut. The DVD came with a free voucher to download a podcast from Rifftraxs website. The film is presented in black and white. Haven't heard, might be better than the first time around.

There was another re-do, released in 1991.

All the audio was removed and redubbed by James Riffel. The project was titled, "Night Of The Day Of The Dawn Of The Son Of The Bride Of The Return Of The Revenge Of The Terror Of The Attack Of The Evil, Mutant, Alien, Flesh Eating, Hellbound, Crawling, Zombified Living Dead Part 2: In Shocking 2-D" (quite a mouthful).

Does not have an official DVD (some bootlegs out there), it had a limited VHS release back in the day, some 500 copies. Quite politically incorrect. Watched a couple scenes recently - weak humor.

I like this quote from Enemycoke:

This movie is like that tape in "The Ring". Sitting on a shelf in an abandoned hotel in the middle of the woods, Unlabeled, and deadly.

One more bastard.



Apologise for the image quality. Did my best, a composite of two images; same one, broken up to fix the distortion - from the best pix I could find online. What you can't see (very well) is that there are dark veins on his head. The fellow has been deceased for a few days.

As you know NOTLD is in public domain; when they were forced to change from "Night Of The Flesh Eaters" (since a varient was already in use - "The Flesh Eaters") and forgot to include the copyright notice. Boom! Anybody can copy and sell this movie, legally.

The film makers have seen very little profits from what is the most successful independent film in cinema history.

There are TONS of crappy copies out there (VHS, DVD and Betamax) - what do they all have in common, regardless of format?

Awful covers; artwork done by someone who got a C- in art class. A few have the poster with added junk. Some are a potpourri of random film images slapped together like a kindergartener's collage. Hell, I've even seen art that is best described as stick figure theater. So when I ran into this, took notice.

Guarantee this DVD is off a poor print; too dark, too scratchy and/or washed out with bad audio - barely watchable. But... I would like a copy, would pay no more than a dollar - as a novelty.

Whoever released this did something special; gave it an original cover. While that dead guy does not appear in the film (kinda looks like the cemetery autopsy zed from the '90 remake), good job on a crappy product. Release year or company? *shrugs*

So when the world has fallen to those damn dirty apes and Man is rendered a mute savage; among the long forgotten relics WILL BE public domain copies of NOTLD - take comfort or despair in that.

Back to the '04 colorized DVD; the insert has names for each of the sixteen chapters, thought it was cute.

1. One Way Trip
2. They're Coming To Get You Barbra
3. Zombies Hate Clotheslines
4. Fun With A Tire Iron
5. Let The Board Nailing Begin!
6. Barbra Wigs Out
7. Nothing Like A Loaded Gun
8. Enter Scuff Head
9. Ben The Alpha Dog
10. Barbra's Still Out To Lunch
11. Willard
12. Barbra's STILL Out To Lunch
13. Einstein At The Gas Pump
14. Feast Of The Living Dead
15. Dad, Your Arm Taste Great!
16. Ending Credits

Return here next Thursday for more NOTLD goodness. Not to worry, this week's taste will wash away.