It's been a long time coming, but I'm now looking at easily the most anticipated cult home video release of 2020 here, ladies and gentlemen: Second Sight's massive 4-disc (7 if count the bonus soundtrack CDs) 4k Ultra HD boxed set of
George Romero's 1978 classic
Dawn Of the Dead.
Announced back in January of 2019 and originally slated for release that summer, it's been delayed
again and
again, though largely
for the right reasons ("we are giving the restoration team as much time as they need to do the most thorough job possible"). It's also
been rough getting this imported properly into the United States, but if you've hung in through it all, I dare say you're happy now.
What's interesting about
Night Of the Living Dead is that, as famous and powerful as it was, it didn't really kick off a sea of imitators. It wasn't really until
Dawn that
zombie films became the genre onto itself as we know it today. This is where Romero solidified his reputation for mixing social and political themes with his horror... not just for the simple observation that people can be mindless consumers like the zombies wandering the shopping mall, though that's clearly here, and the sort of thing films like
The Dead Don't Die still seem to be patting themselves on the back for restating. I think the real commentary is derived from reflecting on the human behavior, the ones we identify with as they attempt and fail to imitate a traditional way of life, ultimately taking up arms to defend their valueless merchandise from actual other survivors.
Not that we really come to these films to be taught a civics lesson. We're here for the thrills and scares. But what's interesting is that those don't really come from the zombies either. They did in
Night, where flesh eating ghouls surrounding your home really is the source of terror. And they were made so again in the mindless remake. But here, the most frightening aspect is the breakdown of civilization. I mean, this film has a scene where a zombie is literally smacked in the face with a cream pie - they're the most helpless faction in this struggle for survival, which has transformed from an overnight siege to a savage war of attrition. What's harrowing is right from the opening scene, authority is failing, scientists are shouting in futility on a television program that's being abandoned by everyone still working on it. The police's last stand is a raid on an inner city apartment complex where they're shooting the lower class residents and each other. And while they're still potentially dangerous, we see the zombies are easily managed, but that doesn't make everyone any less doomed.

The health of this film on disc went from vital and active to
shockingly dry. I used to own the 3-disc special edition of laserdisc
from Elite and remember specifically not replacing it with Anchor Bay's
original '97 and '99 non-anamorphic and nearly barebones DVDs. It
wasn't until their 2004 Special Divimax Edition that I finally found the
jump worthwhile (a trend we'll see repeat with this film). That was
nice, but in 2006, Anchor Bay blew that and any other option out of the
water with their definitive Ultimate Edition, a 4-disc set loaded with
new and legacy extras and three cuts of the film (the theatrical - Romero's director's cut, an extended cut full of deleted scenes and extra footage, and the Italian cut, edited by none other than
Dario Argento, who actually co-produced
Dawn). That was the go-to
set for the DVD age and almost for the BD age. Anchor Bay released a
very early blu in 2007, which was a decent bump to HD for its time, but
sacrificed the alternate cuts and a ton of special features. It seemed
clear that was for the early adapters and the obvious move for most fans
was to wait for a BD equivalent of the Ultimate Edition.
Except the movie sort of slipped into a bit of a limbo when
producer Richard P. Rubinstein paid a ton of money to convert the film into 3D, and then
apparently expected a massive licensing fee that priced out any boutique label
looking to release a update on home video. The original blu (and an
equivalent 2010 Arrow blu that at least restored more extras with a
bonus DVD) went out of print and started fetching exorbitant prices,
despite looking more and more in need of an upgrade itself. Americans
are still waiting, but in the last couple years, Koch took a stab at it
with an Italian 4k edition, later expanded into a few other regions.
But people had issues with it, and eventually Second Sight announced
plans for a massive, multi-cut 4k restoration that would carefully
address every issue and also out-do even the Ultimate Edition in terms
of features. It took them a long time, but they've finally released
separate BD and UHD boxed sets in the UK; and once again, I'm glad I
waited to make the jump. They're limited, but thankfully not too narrowly, having pressed 12,000 of the 4k box and 6,000 of the blu-rays.
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Theatrical: 1) AB 2004 DVD; 2) AB 2006 DVD; 3) SS 2020 UHD. |
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Extended: 1) AB 2006 DVD; 2) SS 2020 UHD. |
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Argento: 1) AB 2006 DVD; 2) SS 2020 UHD. |
Before I delve into this, I can't help but say wowww, look how gorgeous
Dawn looks
now. But okay, let me compose myself. I suppose the first serious
thing I'll draw your attention to is that the theatrical and extended
cuts tend to be consistently using the same transfer. The DVDs look
like each other (and the 2004 and 2006 DVDs are for all intents and
purposes identical) and the the two UHDs look like each other. That's
because they're both taken from the original 35mm negatives, with
inserts for the extended cut. But in both cases, the Argento cut has a
distinctly different look, taken from the Italian interpositive and
featuring very distinct color timing, and in the cases of the 2006 DVD,
is also slightly windowboxed. Segueing into the framing, then, all the
DVDs are 1.84:1, which the UHDs slightly correct to 1.85:1, except the
DVD of the Argento cut, which is 1.83:1. In fact, Anchor Bay's DVD of
the Argento cut is zoomed in far more than any of the other transfers,
although that's not to say all the rest are the same.
Looking at
the two sets above, we see that the UHDs are consistently (across all
cuts) zoomed in tighter on the exterior shots, though they hue pretty
closely to the DVDs on the interior shots. What this tells us (and me
checking comparing other points in the film confirms) is that the film's
been constantly re-framed between the new and old versions. This
pretty much leaves us to trust that SS is the correct framing, though
they do assure us that their work was supervised by DoP
Michael Gornick.
And indeed framing issues had been a complaint with the previous 4k
releases of this film, and working to fix them was one of the reasons
Second Sight's edition took so long in the first place.
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Extended: 1) AB 2006 DVD; 2) SS 2020 UHD. |
One
last thing, while we're still examining the PQ, is the extended
inserts. Like I said, the theatrical and extended cuts are, for all
intents and purposes, exactly the same... except when they're not. So
above is a shot only seen in the extended version, which isn't taken
from the same negative, but rather the color reversal internegative.
And it holds up rather well. You won't notice every time an added bit
appears onscreen because it stands out from the rest of the film, the
grain still looks fine and perfectly filmic in 4k, and the image is
still quite strong. Maybe the detail is slightly less clear and the
grain a little more scattershot, but considering how things like focus
vary throughout the film (an aspect of the original filmmaking, not the
disc transfers), it doesn't snag in motion. On AB's DVD, that footage
looked a little overly contrasty, but Second Sight have made an ideal,
transition-less blend with the rest of the film.
A
nice thing you can say about the Anchor Bay's later DVDs is that they
decked the film out with audio options, even to the point of overkill:
mono, stereo, and two 5.1 mixes. But surprisingly, they never included
any subtitles, even for the Ultimate Edition. Well, Second Sight of
course bumps them up to lossless DTS-HD tracks for the mono, stereo and
5.1 tracks, except the extended cut, which just has the original mono in
DTS-HD. And yes, Second Sight has added optional English subtitles to
all three cuts.
In terms of special features, I'm happy to report that everything
from the Ultimate Edition has been carried over to the Second Sight box
except the easter eggs. I'd long assumed I'd be holding onto the DVDs
for some of the special features, but I'm happy to report there's no
need to bother. It's all here, plus there's a bunch of great, new
stuff.
To start with, the 2004 DVD doesn't have a lot, but it
does have the excellent audio commentary by Romero,
Tom Savini and associate
producer
Christine Forrest (a.k.a. Christine Romero) from the
laserdisc. Besides that, it has some trailers, galleries and two easter
egg interview snippets, but it's mostly all about the commentary. The
Ultimate Edition has that commentary (plus all those trailers, the
easter eggs, etc), plus two more commentaries, giving each cut its own
commentary. That's pretty great, because it's a good way to watch the
different cuts without getting bored watching what is still by and large
the same movie three times in a row. So the extended cut has
Rubenstein and the Argento cut has a more fun, relaxed take with cast
members
David Emge,
Ken Foree,
Scott H. Reiniger and
Gaylen Ross. It also has a great, feature-length retrospective documentary called
The Dead Will Walk, plus on-set home videos with commentary by the zombie extra who filmed them,
Robert Langer,
and a tour of the Monroeville Mall location with Ken Foree. Plus there
are even more trailers, galleries, radio spots and even a vintage
commercial for the mall. And there's
Document Of the Dead.
Possibly the most important extra of all is really a feature film that's been
deemed worthy of its own individual release several times in the past:
Roy Frumkes' 1980
Document Of the Dead.
Synapse first released it in 1998 - in fact, I still have that DVD, for
reasons we'll elucidate a little further down the page. Then it was
expanded into a longer cut (now getting into
Land and the later
Dead films)
and restored in HD, which Synapse put out as the "Definitive" release
in 2012. And it's such a crucial history of the film, with tons of
exclusive footage filmed on location and behind the shooting of
Dawn,
that it's been included in both the Ultimate Edition set and Second
Sight's latest box. In fact, Second Sight again has really gone all-out
with this. Because the Ultimate Edition features the original 1998 cut
again, though it's a little longer, because they took some of the
deleted scenes from Synapse's DVD and tacked it onto the end of the film
as an addendum. But then Second Sight, in the interest of being
thorough and completist, has included that DVD cut (with the addendum)
and the longer "Definitive" version.
And just for the record, yes
I know there are even more cuts floating around out there. There's the
short, roughly hour long original film school version from '79, and an
"'89" cut with a couple minutes of different footage, though still
running far shorter than the latest "Definitive" cut. Frumkes just
keeps Lucasing it, and those are available on some foreign DVDs if you
really feel the need for the perfect
Document collection. But honestly, I think even two cuts is overkill. Basically, it's a great hour on
Dawn with varying degrees of bonus footage tacked onto it and re-redited each time.
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1) 1998 Synapse DVD; 2) 2004 AB DVD; 3) 2020 SS original cut BD; 4) 2020 SS "Definitive" cut BD.
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So
as you can see, the original cut never got restored, but the expanded
version has and it looks heaps better. Synapse's original DVD was
interlaced, though (hey, it was all the way back in 1998) so the
subsequent releases at least fix that. It's also a little bit greener.
But otherwise, even on the blu (and I understand this was the case on
Synapse's blu-ray as well), the original cut is always presented as just
upscaled SD. There is unique footage to both cuts, so I can see the
reasoning for continuing to release both besides just historical
preservation, but by and large, the extended cut is the one fans are
going to want to watch, and the difference in quality is extreme. Sure,
it's some pretty rugged looking 16mm stuff, but on blu it finally looks
like film, with authentic grain, greatly clarified detail, no funky
video noise or compression, and much more authentic colors. Also, the
DVDs (yes, both) are a bit squished at 1.29:1. Second Sight corrects
this for both cuts, restoring the original cut to a more natural 1.33:1,
and the extended cut to 1.34:1. And more notably, the extended cut
also reveals more information along all four sides. The only slight
disappointment: the audio is lossy on every version.
And
Document Of the Dead,
even though it's included here as an extra, brings with it its own
extras. The original DVD had three (which, yes, is the reason I've held
onto it). The first is the 7-8 minutes of extra footage, which has
since been tacked onto the end of the original cut on the Ultimate and
Second Sight releases. But the other two are exclusive to Synapse.
There's an additional twenty minutes of "Lost interviews," including a
portion with
Adrienne Barbeau, and an audio commentary with Frumkes and his DoP
Reeves Lehmann.
Now, Frumkes recorded an updated commentary for his expanded version,
which yes is on the Second Sight disc, but neither they nor Anchor Bay
carried over the old one. Of course, it has to be said, the two
commentaries repeat a lot, and you have to be pretty die-hard to need
the commentaries for both cuts. But if you've already got the Synapse
DVD, that and the extra interview footage might be worth hanging onto.
But we're not done talking about extras yet, because there's still all
the new stuff created by Second Sight! And there's a bunch. We get a
fourth audio commentary (for the theatrical cut) this time by expert
Travis Crawford, to give the outsider historical perspective. Then there's a new, hour-long feature called
Zombies and Bikers,
talking to a ton of the cast and crew. There's also a half-hour tour
of the original mall location with Gornick, Savini, the assistant
cameraman and a stunt man, nearly half-hour featurette on the production
of the film, a new interview with Tom Savini, a vintage interview with
Romero and an interview with actor
Richard France. And those
on-set home videos? They have a new commentary by Langer, yes, in
addition to the old one, which is still there as well. And there are
three soundtrack CDs - one of the
Goblin score and two of the
library music. And there are two hefty books inside: a 160-page
hardcover collection of essays and photos about the film, and the
complete
Dawn Of the Dead novelization. The discs are carried in two digipacks, all bundled together in a very thick, sturdy box. And, if you ordered directly from Second Sight, they also included four exclusive art cards.
This is one of those movies that's such a staple, so revered and something I've consumed so much growing up, that I haven't wanted to watch it again for a very long time. That's partly why I was satisfied just holding onto my DVDs even when I could've kept triple- and quadruple-dipping on the HD discs from Anchor Bay, Arrow and Koch. But I don't think I'm being hyperbolic to say Second Sight has reinvigorated
Dawn Of the Dead. I'm back in love. And I don't know if, given the availability of this restoration, a US release is around the corner. But I also don't know what more anyone could ask for - what further supplements could do anymore than repeat what's already been presented here? So if you were thinking of holding off, I'd say don't.