Night Of The Living Dead - 30th Anniversary Edition

MOVIE
VIDEO
AUDIO
EXTRAS
OVERALL

Two Discs
1.33:1 Aspect Ratio
Dolby Digital 5.1
Commentary
Theatrical Trailers
Over 15 Minutes of New Scenes
Featurette
Still Gallery
Scene from Flesheater
Music Video
32 Page Collector's Booklet

MOVIE

'98 Version

30th Anniversary Version
Not Rated, but contains brief nudity and gore

Okay my friends, I took my time, got some distance and then tried again. It is still CRAPTACULAR. Somewhere back in the good old 1990's, John A Russo co-writer of the brilliant and trend setting Night of the Living Dead got it in his head that despite all the critical success of the original film and its status as a classic of the genre, there was still something missing. What Russo decided was missing was what he, as a man who understands movie terms, calls a back story. He assumed that the audience was always confused as to where that Zombie that tormented Barbara in the cemetery, killed Johnny, and later killed her came from originally. Apparently this had been plaguing audiences for the past thirty years. Let's see, how to fix this? He decided to call up Bill Hinzman, the cemetery zombie himself and go out with a little camera and shoot some more scenes that he could then re-edit into the film. Hey, it worked for George Lucas, didn't it? They'd get a kick ass new score, hire some new actors, get to show off new zombie gore effects. What more could a horror fan want? Unfortunately what resulted was a new score that is more reminiscent of bad eighties television horror, new scenes that not only do not further the plot but actually take us away from the real plot, horrendous acting and a cemetery zombie that looks vaguely similar to the original if you squint real hard and watch the film through Jell-o. So, we've got new scenes added involving the Cemetery Zombie who (shh - don't tell anyone) was actually some sort of baby killer, we're never really sure what sort, maybe they can add to this back story on the 40th anniversary edition. The major new character, though, is Reverend Hicks, played with unadulterated insane enthusiasm by Scott Vladimir Licina, with a set of chompers that would make Gary Busey and son sit down and weep. He makes up for incompetent acting with blistering volume that just increases as he punctuates his sentences with upward lilts. And who did he have to sleep with to get the OPENING CREDIT in the movie for his lame ass musical score. First the title, then NEW MUSIC by. Since when has a score been allowed to be the second credit? My God! Will the horrors never end? So, these new scenes, unceremoniously tacked onto the beginning and end of the film were supposed to seamlessly blend with the rest. This was the intention that Russo and company let on to in their wildly pat on the back commentary. These scenes stick out so far, you'll trip over them on the way to your eject button.
As if this wasn't bad enough, if this ALL wasn't AWFUL enough, Russo and his posse have decided that the film shouldn't change length. What's this? They decided that they had fifteen extra minutes of footage, but that the film was perfect at 96 minutes. So, did they scrap the new crapola like they should've? No, instead they felt that George Romero's original vision should accommodate this new footage. And they started snipping, and they snipped and snipped and snipped some more. They removed pieces of the opening, discussions between Barbara and Ben, bits of dialogue here and there, but horror of horrors, perhaps the greatest atrocity to be committed to a film, the ending is gone. The wonderful photographic horrific ending is gone; only to be replaced by Licina's bigtoothed Reverend spouting off about the book of Revelations one year later. I need to breathe a bit.
These guys appear to make up for some of their crimes by including the original Night of the Living dead on this disc. But they couldn't leave it alone, could they. They still used Vlad's MIDIesque score and have the inexplicable title at the beginning: Night of the Living Dead: '98 Edition The hell? Oh, and lucky for all of us, this very same score is available on CD. But you don't have to go and buy it, they're forcing you to take it home with this set. Enjoy!

VIDEO QUALITY
Night Of The Living Dead is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.33:1, which is also the 16mm standard. This ISN'T pan & scan. Okay, and here's where I say something good about this DVD. The transfer of the film is truly spectacular. Almost too good. The grain has been nearly eliminated, and I'm left wondering if that wasn't part of the original's charm and horror. But with the exception of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre DVD, never have I seen such a good transfer/clean up job. This provides us with a debate. If some of a movie's charm and scare factor was the grainy hard to see at times original that we no so well, and someone "fixes" it, does that make it better? A question for the ages, I guess.

AUDIO QUALITY
The new audio mix of the dialogue sounds good for the most part, nothing better than the Elite DVD release or the Elite laserdisc for that matter. Fair. But, if you want to add in the new sound effects and score to this review, laughably awful. So. The DVD does faithfully render the sound it was given. Hard to say what it deserves.

EXTRAS
An Audio Commentary featuring John A Russo, Bill Hinzman, Russ Streiner and Bob Michelucci would seem to be a high point. But what can I say about this audio commentary besides the fact that it is repulsively pretentious. They constantly talk about story elements using the most condescending voices possible. "Here we begin what to movie people is called a flash-forward." Et al. Then they mumble awed "It's perfect, he hasn't aged a day, exactly the same, unbelievable, I'm so impressed with what we did here." And they spend most of the commentary track patting each other on the back, congratulating each other on such a wonderful job. The single worst moment of the commentary comes early on, though, so you won't have to suffer much to hear it. Russo begins to talk about the opening sequence of the new version before stopping and telling us: "Well, I don't want to give it away. So in a minute you'll learn something you didn't know before." Then we all stop to wait with him.
The 30th Anniversary Behind the Scenes Featurette is shot on home video, consists mostly of various people trying to direct the movie while Russo runs around telling everybody how perfect the scene they just shot was. Everybody mentions how impressed they are with the makeup of the cemetery zombie, all saying that he looks just like he did thirty years ago. (In all fairness, I guess if you inflated the original cemetery zombie with a hose like in a cartoon, then you would get this version) Lucky us, we also get to see Bill Hinzman hamming it up in an awful high pitched Dracula voice. Throw in a little '80s technosynth music with random samples of the original film's dialogue to boot.
Scene from the Bill Hinzman feature Flesh Eater. I went to film school. The scene we see from this movie is what would result from giving a film school student a SLIGHTLY better camera with synch sound. The acting is atrocious, the plot nonsensical, luckily it's too short to cause any perminant damage. Amazingly, this film that looks like it came out of the sixties due to its low production value black and white, was actually made and released in the '90s. Hinzman and Russo, riding Romero's coattails to the grave. The Dance of the Dead Music Video. How many '80s public access projects can really masquerade as features? I mean, c'mon! This low production value music video contains every cheap video effect that was used in the late '80s by people not creative enough to make a video without them. As a bonus, the video is to the technosynth music during the featurette, not even music from the film! Special, 32-Page, 4-Color Collector's Booklet I'll review this extra with an excerpt: "Q. How do you think fans will receive [this new edition]? A. We heartily believe that the millions of fans of this horror classic will enjoy seeing and hearing it in enhanced form, re-edited, remastered and re-scored, with approximately twenty minutes of brand new scenes that do not detract in any way from the original movie, but cover story points that we wished we could have covered thirty years ago when we were knocking ourselves out, working on a shoestring budget. We bent over backwards to preserve the flavor and intention of the original."

CLOSING THOUGHTS
Okay, perhaps I missed it, but since when is the Cemetery Zombie the star of the movie? Throughout the extras, everybody talks about him being the most important character in the film because he starts everything off. (Deep breath) Just because he's the first zombie we see doesn't mean he started the plague for chrissakes! But Hinzman believes it too, I quote again from the little book of Night of the Living Dead 30th Anniversary Edition, where Hinzman states ". . .I am the most recognizable image of LIVING DEAD and in a small way, responsible for the film working." Every single special feature on this disc seems aimed at one purpose, to convince us that this whole stupid thing was a good idea. It wasn't. Don't buy this. It will hurt you. It'll sit on your shelf and pass along its disease to your other, I'm sure all better DVDs. I was hurt by this edition in a way I can only hope the new Millennium Edition heals me from. Truly horrific. Don't only keep this one out of your collection, if you see it at someone else's house, take the disc out of its case and BURN IT! Only then will the horror end.