There are two new laserdiscs of 'Dawn of the Dead' recently released by Elite. Both discs offer an "expanded" version of the movie, a so-called "director's cut" that runs 13 minutes longer than the American theatrical version, which has been available on a dark, murky, grainy, full-frame video since the early 80s. Both versions are letterboxed and the picture and sound on the two are identical. There's a no-frills CLV version with the movie and a theatrical trailer available for $39.95, but here I'll be focusing on the deluxe all-CAV Collector's Edition.
From the opening shot of 'Dawn of the Dead' -- a close-up of a blood-red carpet in a television studio -- it's joyously clear that this newly remastered laserdisc version is brighter, more colorful, richer and more "alive" than any previous tape or disc edition; on the older version, the carpet in the opening shot looks brown. The image, properly letterboxed for its theatrical aspect ratio (1.85:1), is cleaner and solid, without the annoying grain that infested older versions (to be fair in my critique, a few zombie close-ups on side 4 are inexcusably grainy, but the poor resolution of these few shots makes for a good comparison to see just how great the rest of the movie looks now). Nothing is added to the sides of the image with the letterboxing; the borders merely mask out visual information at the top and bottom of the full-frame version.
The movie is in monaural, but the cleaned-up soundtrack has a dynamic range and a more powerful "presence" that ups the film's suspense and tension factor considerably. Compared to the flat, stale audio on the previous version, this new version is music to any zombie-lover's ears.
The expanded cut of 'Dawn of the Dead' runs 139 minutes not 142 minutes as erroneously printed in the liner notes) and is spread out across 5 CAV sides. The side breaks are sometimes abrupt but, considering the length and episodic nature of the film, they're all well timed (the side/platter breaks don't interrupt music or dialogue, and even the harshest break is timed to coincide with a camera edit).
There's a huge fan base for George A. Romero's "Dead" trilogy, and while many of them are likely to complain about what was not included on this disc, the legion of "Dead"-heads should be satisfied by what Elite Entertainment has been able to dig up. The running audio commentary is a perfect place to start. It reassembles director Romero, make-up whiz Tom Savini and assistant director Christine Romero for a marathon gab session. They talk about their experiences in filming a low-budget, independent film in a massive shopping mall, the creative, gruesome makeup effects, the popularity of the entire "Dead" trilogy and, particularly, this film's cult appeal. In addition to the 13 minutes of previously-unseen footage (mostly expository scenes and some extra gore), there is a collection of domestic and international trailers, a plethora of TV spots (though the 10-second spots get annoyingly repetitive), a 3-minute radio spot and two inconsequential scenes included in producer Dario Argento's slightly-altered international version of the film (titled 'Zombie', but unrelated to the 1979 Italian-made rip-off with the same name). A chapter is devoted to a step-by-step, page-by-page reproduction of the original shooting script (which includes the discarded "suicide" ending), and the still gallery includes hundreds of posters, collectibles and production photographs. A segment of "fan testimonials" is little more than a handful of "Dead"-heads at the famous shopping mall in Pittsburgh, remembering the first time they saw 'Dawn of the Dead'. (Geek factor: Extremely High!) The entire 3-disc program is housed in an ominous black box with silver lettering, but I think some sort of zombie design (like the one on the cheaper, CLV version) would have been more appropriate. The jacket design on this deluxe edition is rather generic. Also, the color insert -- with chapter listings, production credits and an essay on the film by the producer of 'From Dusk Till Dawn' -- is rather flimsy, printed on cheap paper instead of the heavier stock most laserdisc inserts are printed on.
Not just a remake of 1968's horror chiller 'Night of the Living Dead', George A. Romero's 1978 sequel is an updating of it -- a zombie movie set in a zombified, materialistic culture. By setting the film in a shopping mall -- a mecca where shop-a-holics converge, meet and move from one retail outlet to another, just like zombies -- Romero has gone for a level of social satire not traditionally found in horror movies. This lends the film a deeper resonance, and is probably why the movie is still regarded by even the most squeamish and prudish film critics as a true horror classic, and why the film is so popular today, nearly 20 years after its release. The nonstop barrage of nauseating gore gradually becomes a hypnotic, almost comic ballet of blood and bodies. Even by today's standards, Tom Savini's makeup effects are effectively gruesome and gross. And the CAV encoding of this edition allows for perfect freeze-frames of every deliciously, deliriously disgusting shot.
Stats: Elite Entertainment; 3 discs, 6 sides; CAV; Widescreen (1.85:1); Digital Monaural; Chapter stops; $99.95
S. Damien Segal.
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