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Night of the Living Dead - 30th Anniversary Edition Limited Edition

Night of the Living Dead - 30th Anniversary Edition Limited Edition

List Price: $34.98
Your Price: $31.48
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Just my personal insight to a great film of the 20th Century
Review: This edition (Limited) of "Night of the Living Dead" should only be purchased under certain conditions. 1)That you want both 1968 and 1998 versions of the film. (1998 version has been re-edited, rescored with 15 minutes of new footage. Most of the new footage works, but what they cut out took away from the storyline from the '68 version.) 2) That you want to listen to the soundtrack, because that is what the second disc is. Don't get me wrong, the music is great and I've listen to it often, but if you don't want the soundtrack, well then..... The commentary was one of the main reasons I bought this edition and it is very insightful. If the reader has any questions, I'd be more than happy to answer them, but not being a film critic, I don't know how serious I can be. I gave this 4 stars because I wasn't too fond of the editing done to the movie for the '98 version, as mentioned above. Otherwise it would get 5.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: From a true fan of the film.
Review: Hi,

I wrote a review for the Elite Special Edition as well, so see that too.

I bought this version against reccomendations and was pleasently surprized.

This edition contains 2 versions of the film. The first is the 30th Anniversary version which has new footage that was originaly in the script but was cut due to costs and a new score which is a little overpowered but puts it right in line with the sequals.

The video is fully digitized and is increadibly crisp and clear. The added scenes are fairly unnoticed to the untrained eye and the new score is brilliant and keep the film pace going quite well.

I highly reccomend this version if you can find it because the Limited Edition has an extra CD with the new score.

The booklet is thick and full of interviews and the insert card is colorfull and lists chapters for both versions.

If you are a die hard fan get this AND the Elite Special Edition as that one is a good, no frills, copy of the original film unedited.

I hope this helps.

Joe

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: what?
Review: I rented this version because it's the only one I could get my hands on and I had read and been told over the years how great a movie it is. Well, this was one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Supposedly this version is to be avoided, but I did not know that going into this. I must admit, I did see a second or two of brilliance here and there throughout the film, but all in all it was utterly EXCRUCIATING.

Poorly edited, terribly acted (both of which mean to me that Romero is an awful director), synched like a Japanese overdub at parts, and not in the least bit humorous as I was led to believe. I don't see a classic in here in any sense. The lighting/setting and music were the only descent things about this flick. I hung in there, waiting for the promised greatness to come, but all I got for my trouble was an Alistair Crowley wannabe spending the last 5 minutes of the film irritating me more than a parental lecture did at age 15.

If this is truly a 4-star film and someone butchered it this badly, they deserve to have their fingernails slowly ripped out with pliers and then be used as the guinea pig in an under-funded dental school.

All that said this movie did do one thing it set out to. It scared me. . . from ever even thinking about getting my hands on the original.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Confound you, ambitious filmmakers!
Review: NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD is arguably the greatest horror film of all-time, and easily one of the most influential ever made. However, this DVD does NOT contain the true version of the film. Despite the fact that it includes a couple nice special features, this version of the film is for die-hard Romero fans only.
The film has been re-edited, with new, completely unnecessary scenes inserted; also, Scott Vladimir Lacina has replaced the popular score of library music from the first film with a new score. John A. Russo lead the project, and said he was surprised by the reaction of fans. Well, nice job, Mr. Russo, you damned the film straight to hell. I cannot tell you enough times not to purchase this edition.
Confound you, ambitious filmmakers!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: New scenes aren't any help
Review: For it's 30th anniversary edition, John A. Russo has directed over 15 minutes of new scenes edited into the picture. Though it's not noted on the box, other scenes came out to make room for the new ones. Probably not the smartest move, because left intact the movie would still be under two hours. Any why cut anything of the original film? New scenes include a new beginning and a new conclusion, and shots of zombies roaming the countryside. One interesting sequence has a family killed in roadside car accident slowly coming back to life. But other than that the new scenes don't seem to fit into the picture very well, and don't seem to do anything to enhance the story. You can tell the difference between the new and old footage. The new beginning includes scenes with the cemetery zombie (Bill Hinzman), and the 30 year difference between his new footage and 1968 footage is painfully obvious. I'm not crazy about the new musical score, either. I thought the original score was more effective, even though George Romero is said to have disliked it. In fact, I wouldn't have tampered with a thing. Shown in full-frame. Also included is the original version, with the new musical score. Extra features include a behind-the-scenes featurette, with cast and crew patting themselves on the back in this endeavor, the theatrical trailer, a still gallery, audio commentary with John A. Russo, Bill Hinzman, Russ Streiner, and Bob Michelucci, a scene from the Bill Hinzman feature "Flesh Eater", a "Dance of the Dead" music video (don't ask) and 32 page collector's booklet. All the bonus material is centered around the new scenes. Die-hard fans of the original may want to stick with that one.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: (In my OWN opinion) a pretty bad DVD
Review: I don't really think I it would make a difference to write this review, cosidering my opinion (or part of it anyway) has already been expressed in other reviews, but I may as well help inform others.
Before I go any further I would like to state that this is just my own opinion, others might quite like this version.
Anyway, this edition of the film is terrible, the beginning and end of the film has truly been ruined. Do people really care where the "cemetary zombie" came from? Why even did the filmmakers who did this feel that they had to film that. It is the same actor playing the zombie and you can tell he's thirty years older. There's no need to sya the acting is terrible. But the guy playing the reverend looks more like a criminal than a religious leader.
In the commentary, the producers say they put those new scenes in the film to state "why" the dead were rising. Excuse me if I'm wrong but wasn't the "why" element already stated in the origional version when the characters were watching the headlines on TV, it was stated on the news that it was "radiation from Venice."
Anyways this version really blows, just my opinion though. Perhaps others will like it.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A worthless pile of garbage
Review: Kudos to Anchor Bay for remastering the original footage (which is even sharper and clearer than Elite's version) but the lousy new synth score and stupid, pointless, badly acted new scenes are a case lesson in how you can take a classic and turn it into a turd.

And John Russo, the talentless co-writer of the original NIGHT and the director of the new scenes for this new NIGHT, says, "This is what we wanted to do originally."

If that's so, I imagine the conversation between Russo and George Romero in 1968 during the production went like this:

John Russo: Hey George, wouldn't it be cool if we added a subplot with a bald-headed geek as a priest and two gravediggers at the beginning?

George Romero: No, John. That's stupid.

Any self-respecting film fan should avoid submitting themselves to this catastrophic butchery of a classic.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Hard to be alive, black and strong in the midst of death
Review: A classic that will have many babies. The situation is simple and we all know it : a few normal people attacked by recently not yet buried corpses that have been revived in the brain. Living dead in a word. But this classic goes beyond this simple anecdote. It tries to explain - a sign that we are before the horror wave that will come soon - the phenomenon with some kind of radiation from Venus. But the main interest is the study of the reactions of people in front of such a situation. Fear of course. Self-protection and survival even if you have to kill your next door neighbor. Absolute egotism. Among them a black man who has some natural authority but who will have to kill all his fellow survivors because either they turn against him out of fear or they turn into living dead after having been killed in a way or another. The second interest is the organization society puts up to solve the crisis : a general posse that can « kill » (but how can we kill living dead who are already dead ?) at will and to the finish. And the finish will be to kill a live man because there is little difference between a living dead and a live man when both are on the other side, in front of your gunbarrel, and irony of irony, ..., but you have to see it. The moral of the story is that humanity is not very brilliant when it is confronted with a crisis in their own midst, coming from inside their ring.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Just Plain Awesome!
Review: Dudes, get a life. Everywhere I look I see negative reviews. Negative, negative, negative. We've got to learn to live in peace and respect. The reason I think people are overreacting to this version is this: nobody is forcing anybody to watch this so if you hated it, don't watch it again. I like Night of the Living Dead but have never considered it a great movie. So I viewed the new edition without any prejudice, and I was pleasantly surprised. I like the new footage. It may not have blended with the original perfectly, but it was very impressive. The acting in the new scenes was better than the acting in the rest of the movie. I particularly liked the reverand because you can tell the actor playing him wasn't taking anything too seriously. The new scenes around Beakman's Diner were very cool and presented some awesome carnage only talked about in the original. The man who plays the reverand also makes a new musical score which added a new atmosphere of 80s tech snthosizer type that I loved. The DVD's picture was top-notch, better than possible. There was a commentary that was full of cool information. there was also a kinda cool featurette that was to short. The music video was very funny. The original, unedited version is also available but with the cool new musical score.

I realize that many people hated this version, but I found it a very interesting reinterpratation of the original. I may be one of the only five star reviews, but I'm just expressing my opinion, and here it is: BUY THIS GREAT DVD NOW!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: I'd like to thank Elite Entertainment for the REAL version!
Review: This is THE biggest waste of money I have ever encountered. I hadn't seen the film since I was a kid, so I bought it hoping to see a re-enactment of my childhood memories, and it seemed that this wasn't the way I had remembered the film.

So to compensate, I took a chance and bought the Elite Entertainment THX Millennium Edition of "Night Of The Living Dead" to see the way this classic was supposed to be.

Well, to say the least I snapped this "30th Anniversary Edition" in half and burnt the rest of the material in protest. In short, THIS ANCHOR BAY EDITION IS THE MOST HORRIBLE PRESENTATION OF THIS CLASSIC. YOU MUST AVOID!


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