Grappling With Day Of the Dead

For many years, Day Of the Dead was the under-appreciated, unloved entry in George Romero's epic "Dead Trilogy."  It was the dumb, trashy 80s film that followed two horror masterpieces that each had dramatically revolutionized the genre.  And okay, Day didn't have the formative impact its predecessors had; but over the decades, its reputation has grown and solidified as, if nothing else, one of the great zombie films.  And accordingly, it's received a series of compelling special editions, on both DVD and blu, here and abroad.  Very different special editions, in fact, with all sorts of unique quirks, faults and special features.  I'd actually been holding off getting any version of Day on blu, in fact, in a sort of "which is the right one to buy" paralysis.  But now that I'm the DVDExotica guy, I figured that's no longer acceptable, so I had to work it all out.

Update 2/6/18 - 8/6/18: I already talked about it to death on this page, but now I've actually got my hands on a copy of the Anchor Bay blu-ray, so I added screenshots to give you all a 100% complete all-around comparison.

Update 7/26/26: Ten years later, and we've finally got a real upgrade.  During that time, Umbrella released what could arguably've been a contender for a better disc, bur really, with the negatives lost, we were circling around lackluster masters.  Until now - the interpositive has been found (no, not the negatives; those are still lost) and Scream Factory are the first to burst out the gate with a brand new 4k, fancy four-disc special edition!  Let's just hope they weren't in such a rush that they screwed something up...

I've always dug this film, but I get why others haven't.  It's got big performances and heavy-handed characterizations, it's a lot less scary, particularly with its eccentric, calypso-inspired upbeat soundtrack (I mean, come on, Dawn had Goblin!), and it doesn't help that all the fans know Romero's original concept for the film had to be greatly scaled back from his original vision, including half the action taking place on an above-ground army base with an army of trained zombies and what would eventually become Land Of the Dead's centerpiece: Dead Reckoning. 

On the other hand, this film gets so much right.  The characters might be overdrawn, intentionally or not, but Joseph Pilato's Captain Rhodes, John Liberty's cheerfully demented turn as "Frankenstein" and of course Bub are all characters that forever stick with you.  It's got one of the all-time great locations.  And Day is the film where Tom Savini, assisted by a young Greg Nicotero brought just not top of the line gore, but elevated the zombies themselves from extras slopped in grease paint into jaw-dropping special effect show-pieces.  Practically all of the peaks and valleys that would become The Walking Dead can be found in this film, even the way the zombies wind up getting side-lined by the in-fighting of the survivors.  But even within the short run of a single movie, Romero takes the story farther with his idea of evolving zombie intelligence and views of the outer world at large, than TWD has in all of its seasons to date.

So, Day of the Dead was naturally in the hands of pretty much the #1 horror and cult DVD label during the 1990s and early 2000s, Anchor Bay.  They first released it in 1998 as a widescreen, but non-anamorphic single disc edition in 1998.  I've actually still got that one.  Then they reissued it in 2003 as a proper, anamorphic, 2-disc Divimax special edition.  I've got that one, too.  They also repackaged that as a cheaper, single disc edition without the fancy packaging in 2004.  But really, that 2003 DVD's been king until the age of HD.  Then, things get a little tricky.  Anchor Bay released a very early blu-ray edition of it in 2007, then Arrow put it out in the UK as a DVD/ blu-ray combo-pack in 2010 with all new special features.  They reissued that as a limited edition, 3-disc set in 2012 with even more special features.  They also put out a steelbook in 2014, but unfortunately without that third disc.  And back here in the States, Scream Factory picked it up for their own edition, with more unique special features, in 2013.  All of these blus have stuff on them that the others don't... and that includes technical problems.  This isn't gonna be a quick and easy comparison, so let's not waste any more time.

1) AB 1998 DVD; 2) AB 2003 DVD; 3) AB 2007 BD; 4) Arrow 2012 DVD;
5) Arrow 2012 BD; 5) SF 2013 BD; 6) SF 2026 BD; 7) SF 2026 UHD.

So the first set of shots shows exactly why the original DVD is hopelessly out of date.  It's a tiny, little 1.80:1 non-anamorphic image.  That alone is reason enough to replace it, which Anchor Bay did themselves, giving it a fresher, thankfully anamorphic 1.85:1 transfer on their newer DVD.  The older DVD also had washed out colors, hot brights, artifacting, and all the obvious stuff you can expect from an old 90s DVD.  I won't waste anymore time harping on that; the pictures speak for themselves and the situation is already obvious.  Anchor Bay's blu?  Well, it gets rid of the artifacting.  Color are a little more robust, it's a bit clearer.  Interestingly, it's also the last we see of the traditional 1.85 framing.  Arrow and Scream Factory both opt for a 1.78:1 frame (though Arrow's DVD is a little rough around the edges and could be maybe considered 1.79:1).  It's never a massive boost in detail and clarity from the DVDs, but the difference is there.  You can actually read the numbers on the yellow sticker of that car on the blus (even the Anchor Bay), which you certainly can't on the original DVD.

And between the blus?  Well, there's room for improvement on all three, but Arrow has a real smoothed out, DNR'd look.  Scream Factory isn't exactly a microscopically perfect 4k scan of every inch of grain, but it's more natural and filmic than Arrow's.  It also has richer colors.  Also, despite Arrow and Scream both being in 1.78, the framing is shifted slightly.  But they're close enough that it's hard to guess which one is more correct or to say that one looks better.  Strictly speaking, AB's blu might be the most accurate just by virtue of being in 1.85.  But they just offer slightly different slivers around the edges.  But in general, yeah, I doubt many would contest Scream's win in terms of PQ.  Everything's pretty natural and straight-forward so far.

Anyway, that's all ancient history now, right?  What about the new scan?  Well, we're back to 1.85:1, and that's not just from matting the 1.78 framing; there's a bit more picture now along the sides than any previous disc.  New detail isn't as prevalent as one might've hoped, but remember, the negatives are still missing; this is from an interpositive.  Even with that in mind, though, film grain is surprisingly light, even on the UHD.  There's still a softness to the image I wasn't expecting this time around.  In short, this is the best version yet, but I feel a little let down here.

Going back to that old 1998 DVD, it did get something right - the audio!  Now, it just gives us the original mono audio track in 2.0 (and no subtitles, for the record).  But having that original mono audio is going to prove important here.  Yeah, the mono has a little sibilance (on all the releases), but it's nowhere on the level of Black Christmas or anything.  But problems were introduced with the new 2003 edition, problems that would plague this film for years to come.  And this is ironic, considering we're talking about Anchor Bay's special Divimax edition, where their fancy new audio was a big part of their marketing.  They included three audio tracks: Dolby Digital Surround EX (a 5.1 mix), DTS-ES (a 6.1 mix) and Dolby Surround 2.0.  Oh, and now with English captions.  Just one problem with all three of those audio tracks - they're censored!  Lines with curse words, or even phrases like "oh, Jesus" as the scientists watch Bub eat human flesh st the 1:11:40 mark, are muted.

Now, I can't take credit for being the first to spot this problem; it's been written about plenty online.  This page on istherefood.com does a great job of finding specific instances and including audio clips of both the censored and uncensored versions; I definitely recommend pouring through that.  So I'm just going to focus on which tracks on which discs are censored or uncensored.  And so far, the answer is 1998 uncensored, and all the tracks on AB's 2003 DVD are censored.  Now that page I linked writes about Arrow's audio being still censored.  But that article is from 2006, so thankfully he's talking about an older DVD set they released that year.  Checking Arrow's blu-ray, which offers both the original mono in 2.0 and a 5.1 mix in DTS-HD (but unfortunately, no subs), I'm happy to report that both tracks are uncensored.  As for Anchor Bay, it's a mixed bag.  Their LPCM 5.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks are both censored, but their Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is the original.  And the 2013 Scream Factory, which just offers the original mono in DTS-HD (and yes, subtitles)?  Also uncensored.

So it was a big surprise, and huge disappointment, to see that the fancy new audio tracks on Scream's new 2026 release are... censored again.  WTF, guys?  There's a fancy new Dolby Atmos mix, a DTS-HD 5.1 and DTS-HD 2.0 mono track - all censored.  That mono isn't even areal mono, just the Atmos downmixed.  Fortunately, they also threw in the old stereo track from the laserdisc, probably as a bit of a novelty nod to completionism (it's not even mentioned on the back of the package with the other ones0.  But it winds up being the only way to hear the uncensored audio, and honestly, it's a pretty decent sounding-track, apart from messing up the closing credits song.  So it's not an "avoid this edition" problem, but it's certainly not a good look.  ...Oh, and yes, optional English subtitles are also available.

But we haven't even gotten to the most complicated part of the comparison yet: the extras.  It starts out simple enough.  The original DVD had a 20 minute collection of behind-the-scenes footage, the trailer, and an insert.  Curiously, it was a double-sided disc, with the film on one side and the brief extras on the other.  Anyway, the 2003 DVD really ramped it up, with fancy packaging of a 3-dimensional zombie acting as a little Velcro gateway to the foldout case (protected in a clear plastic shell), and a neat booklet designed to look like Dr. Frankenstein's notepad.  They actually lost the original behind-the-scenes footage, though, replacing it with a new, longer behind-the-scenes footage featurette.  They're very different, though.  The original was apparently shot by Nicotero and interviews a lot of the crew and interns, while the latter was shot by Savini and focuses largely on the development of the special effects.  There's no overlap between them and they're both quite good and worthwhile.

Anyway, Anchor Bay's DVD also added a lot more, including an excellent audio commentary by Romero, Savini, star Lori Cardille, and production designer Cletus Anderson, plus another commentary by Roger Avery (Rules of Attraction, Pulp Fiction).  The second commentary is somewhat interesting, but runs out of steam about halfway through.  They also have a solid 'making of' documentary that runs about 40 minutes with a lot of interviews, an audio-only interview with the deceased Richard Liberty (the actor who played Frankenstein), and a fun promo video for the mines the film was shot in.  Also included are stills galleries, three trailers, three TV spots, and the original script as a DVD-ROM bonus.  Anchor Bay's blu-ray has exactly the same extras as their 2-disc set, minus the DVD-ROM.

Which brings us to Arrow.  Interestingly, Arrow's 2010 blu-ray featured all new extras, but none of the old ones.  These were all made by Highrising Pictures, during Calum Waddell's time with Arrow, and they're all pretty good (and yes, feature those cute animations by his wife).  There's an all new audio commentary by Nicotero and fellow effects artists Howard Berger, Everett Burrell and Mike Deak, which starts out really fun and informative, but like the Avery commentary, starts to run low on material in the second half.  Then there's a nearly hour-long interview with Joe Pilato, which goes quite in depth, and another seventeen minute "travelogue" of footage of Joe at various European conventions.  All great stuff, but by itself, pretty light.  Like, most of the major players aren't included.

And that's why they re-released it as a 3-disc set.  Now the original DVD and blu from the combo-pack are exactly the same, but they've added a third disc of extras, which basically restores most of the Anchor Bay special features.  Their 'making of,' the Liberty interview, the Nicotero behind-the-scenes footage (but not the Savini one!), even the mine promo.  Also this disc has all the trailers, TV spots and stills galleries.  Arrow's set also includes a 16-page booklet by Waddell, a card for a different Arrow release (mine was Withnail and I), and reversible artwork.

And the Scream Factory blu?  It's another weird hodge-podge of old and new extras.  They have the two Anchor Bay audio commentaries (but not Arrow's), Savini's behind-the-scenes footage (but not Nicotero's!), the mine promo, and the trailers and galleries.  But they also have an all new, feature length 'making of' documentary.  This is better than the AB one, covering a lot of the same material but a lot more besides (though it has to be noted that the original AB one has some exclusive interviews, too, like Romero's wife).  And Scream also made a new featurette visiting the mine location (not to be confused with the promo video), which is kinda cool and a little bit weird, honestly.  Scream's release also includes reversible artwork.

Now that brings us to Scream's new 4-disc set.  Is it the ultimate collection of all preceding legacy extras?  That would have been sweet, but no.  It doesn't even have all the extras from their 2013 set.  But before you get too disappointed, it does have most of them, and makes up for anything it didn't carry over with a bunch of new stuff.  So let's start with what's gone missing.  Essentially, the extras here match their previous blu, minus the Roger Avery commentary.  And frankly, I don't miss it.  I would've rather had Nicotero's behind the scenes footage from the Arrow release if we're being honest.  And what do we get instead?  There's a new expert commentary by Daniel Kraus and Drew McWeeny, which is probably more interesting than Avery''s, but the two you really want are the Romero one (on this disc) and Nicotero one (not on this disc).  Then there's a surprisingly in-depth look at the new restoration, which I really appreciated (more of these in the future, please!).  And there's a grip of new, mostly webcam (I'm not saying Covid's been completely eradicated from this Earth, but I think it's time to start filming your interviews in person again) interviews with Lori Cardille, John Amplas, Greg Nicotero, composer John Harrison, 2nd unit cameraman Ernest Dickerson (he's a good addition, because he wasn't already featured in the documentary like all these others), Suzanne Romero and Tina Romero.  There's also a bonus featurette called "Stink Of the Dead" - you can guess what that's about if you've watched many of the previous extras.

This release also includes an isolated music/ sound effects track, plus several trailers and TV spots.  There's a neat collection of twelve lobby cards, and the set itself comes in two amary cases housed in a satisfyingly solid slipbox.  ...There have also been accusations of AI being used on the cover and the artist wanting his name removed, so I think we can definitely file this release under controversial.

So let's say you want all the extras.  Admittedly, some of it gets redundant (you'll hear the story about the guts used for the zombie attack scene going rancid about eighteen times), but each release has some interesting exclusives.  Well, if you can track down Arrow's 3-disc set, that and the Scream Factory eould pretty much do ya.  Between those two, you'll have both companies' new content plus all of the Anchor Bay material.  But Arrow's 3-disc set was limited and out of print, so it'll take some digging.  Your only option using the regular, more readily available Arrow release is to buy all three blus: Arrow, Scream and Anchor Bay (or, at least, the Anchor Bay DVD set, which would at least save you a few bucks).  Another route to go now would be the Umbrella 2018 (not their previous 2010 release) and Scream Factory sets, which would even net you a bonus interview with Romero filmed at some Australian film festival, and a copy of the NotLD doc, Reflections Of the Dead.  But then you'd still be missing out on the Richard Liberty interview...  You really need at least three older releases to get all the pre-existing stuff no matter how you slice it.  But practically speaking, just the 2026 release's extras should be more than enough for most viewers, even serious fans. What I'd recommend is just this: if you have any older copies with unique extras, hang onto 'em, but don't bother hunting down any old editions now.

As far as the film itself though, what was once a tough call is no longer a question: 4k restoration wins.  Yes, it's imperfect, and some audio nut is going to insist on the Arrow for the uncensored 5.1 mix or something, but this is still the best version on the market, even if it's not by as wide a margin as folks anticipated.  And the uncensored stereo mix isn't perfect, but saves the audio from being the complete disaster it almost was.

The Re-Animator Is the Dominator

Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator is in the weirdly unique position where its unrated version is actually shorter than its censored, R-rated version. By several minutes, too; not just a few seconds. I remember holding both VHS tapes in my hands back in the day and thinking they had to have been mislabeled; but no, it's true. Why? Because the R-rated version, though missing the most extreme, controversial shots like you'd expect, features a bunch of less shocking scenes trimmed out of the unrated version. I guess for pacing. But I grew up with both versions, and so, while horror fans naturally gravitate towards the bloody unrated version, I always thought something special was missing from it. Of course, something special was missing from the R-rated version, too; and if you've seen the film, you know exactly what moment I'm thinking about.  heh

Update 7/17/15 - 6/7/26: Wow, talk about a page in need of an update, huh?  Well, I've skipped a few editions since I originally wrote this, but I'm back with the new 4k UHD from Second Sight.  Oh, and yes, the title of this post does come from the fact that I'm listening to this song.  I'm easily susceptible.

When Elite Entertainment released their excellent 10th anniversary Re-Animator laserdisc, it included, amongst many other things, the unrated version with all of the deleted scenes as extras and a detailed timeline of where each of those would fit into the complete film. I always wanted to use those to make a composite cut, but back in those days, getting a digital recording of a laserdisc and trying to edit a high quality movie file on a personal computer was technically possible, but rather daunting.

So, when Elite came out with their Millennium Edition special edition, I got that; and when Anchor Bay came out with their re-release, including a new 70-odd minute making of documentary I switched to that version. And I've still got that one, so we can use it for a comparison here. Yeah, Image put out a blu-ray; but I never felt compelled to upgrade. And I'm glad I didn't, because a year later, the German DVD company Capelight came out with their own 3-disc special edition blu. And not only did it feature a new and much improved 4k scan and restoration from the original negatives, which frankly would've been enough, but they used that new transfer to create "the Integral Cut," which combined all of the extra R-rated version's footage with the essential unrated moments. It's the Re-Animator I've always wanted... although admittedly some of those long scenes of Bruce Abbot and Barbara Crampton could've been left on the cutting room floor. But still, this is now my definitive Re-Animator; it's great.

Now, Capelight's released a couple different versions of their new Re-Animator blu. A cheaper single disc edition, a combo pack with Bride of Re-Animator, and the one I opted for: the 3-disc mediabook set. The 3-disc set is two dual-layer blus and one DVD, containing all the extras (more on that later). It has the Integral cut, of course, but also the traditional unrated version from the same 4k scan, in case you're not as sure of the new cut as I am. And it has a standard def presentation of the TV cut as well, for completists, or yaknow, just for fun.  It was the cutting edge ten years ago.

But now we've had some new contenders.  Arrow released a blu-ray which is basically the same as Capelight's, but with some extra features mostly about Re-Animator: The Musical.  And more recently, Ignite in the US and Second Sight in the UK have made a new scan (well, I think Ignite made it and SS licensed it) for a proper 4k Ultra HD release, taking it to the next generation for the next decade.  Let's take a look.

1) 2007 Anchor Bay 2007 DVD; 2) 2013 Capelight Integral BD;
3) 2013 Capelight Unrated BD; 4) 2013 Capelight unrated DVD; 5) 2013 Capelight TV BD;
6) 2025 Second Sight Integral UHD; 7) 2025 Second Sight Unrated UHD.

I'll get one thing out of the way right off the bat: not only are Capelight's Unrated and Integral cuts using the exact same transfer, so is Second Sight's Integral cut, which despite being on a UHD disc is still just 1920x1080.  Their unrated version boasts the new transfer, but their Integral cut is just a carry over from 2013 (and the same is true, for the record, of Ignite's release), no upgrade to be had there.

Now, let's get into the framing.  Anchor Bay's 1.82:1 aspect ratio may be more correct than Capelight's 1.78:1 numerically, but seeing how it chops off Dean Halsey's hand, I'd say the Capelight more properly reveals more.  But Second Sight finally perfects it with an exact 1.85:1 ratio and most of the picture AB lacked.  Also interesting is the TV cut, included on one of the blu-rays but in standard definition none the less. Sure, it's the fuzziest and worst looking of the lot, but it's also open matte.  At 1.32:1, while it has all the same picture on the sides (compared to the older framing, of course, as seen on the AB shots), there's additional picture on the tops and bottoms.  Ugly, boxy misframing, of course, but fans may want to at least pop it in and scan through it as a curiosity piece.

The new colors, even starting with the Capelight, are far more natural than the red-heavy look of AB disc. Grain is very real there, too; though of course the UHD really perfects it.  Its Dolby Vision also pulls out a smidgen from the shadows, but honestly not very much.  Capelight's restoration was already excellent, there wasn't much else to do in 2026 besides tweak the AR and slap it on a proper 4k disc.  The colors and HDR differences are pretty subtle.  Don't get me wrong; it's excellent, arguably perfect; The Re-Animator was just in a really good place already.

Anchor Bay starts us off with stereo and 5.1 remixes, and no subtitles.  Besides the multiple German audio tracks, the unrated version (on both Capelight's blu and DVD) sports 5.1 and 2.0 stereo English mixes. And it's got optional English subtitles as well. The Integral cut doesn't have the subs or 2.0 mix, but does have a DTS-HD 5.1 English track. Capelight has also added an isolated music score.

And Second Sight?  They've gone back and restored the original mono in DTS-HD, as well as the stereo and 5.1 mixes on the unrated cut, as well as included English subtitles on both cuts.  Unfortunately, not only does their Integral cut only have the 5.1 remix, but it's lossy.  Their one point of downgrade.  I think they really regard the Integral cut as just an extra.  Oh, and they've dropped the isolated score. Another niggling disappointment.

Extras are a pretty solid lock for the Capelight blu, carrying over everything from past editions. Re-Animator covered itself in the special features department pretty early on. The old laserdisc already had two excellent audio commentaries with all the major players, plus the long list of deleted scenes and trailers. Then the Millennium DVD set added interviews with just about everybody, plus some storyboards and odds & ends and even an isolated music score; and those extras have stuck with just about every subsequent release. Anchor Bay, being Anchor Bay, of course added something new to the mix: that 70 minute documentary I mentioned earlier. And that, along with all those other extras have been ported over to Capelight's release. No, they didn't really come up with any new extras, but there's not much left that needs to be added that wouldn't just be redundant at this point. Re-Animator already came fully-loaded.

The media book packaging includes a nice 24-page booklet, but the text is all in German. Looks nice, though. There's also a couple inserts and auto-playing bonus trailers for other Capelight releases on each disc. But that's the only non-English friendly content. Every cut of the film and all of the extras are in English.

Redundant or not, though, we have new extras now.  Like I said, between Capelight and now, Arrow added the musical-related stuff, plus a new interview with Crampton, that goes over more of the rest of her career, and a long featurette about Lovecraft adaptations on film.  Second Sight hasn't carried over the musical stuff (though for the record, Ignite did), but they do have the Crampton and Lovecraft interviews.  Then Ignite and Second Sight share a bunch of new stuff, including Re-Animator at 40, a new conversation between Brian Yuzna, Combs and Crampton, which is a nice look back, but repeating many of the same anecdotes we've heard already in these things.  But there are also new on-camera interviews with editor Lee Percy, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon and a featurette where filmmakers like Mick Garris and Joe Lynch sing Re-Animator's praises.  And Second Sight has a couple of exclusives, both by expert Mike Muncer: a video essay and an audio commentary.

Second Sight's release comes as a single UHD disc or a limited edition which throws in an extra BD copy of the film, plus a 150-page hardcover book and six collector's art cards.

You could tell the people at Capelight really cared about this film, and came up with a blu-ray package that didn't just upgrade our old DVDs to HD but really strove to give us a definitive release.  Other countries are started to pick up on their 4k scan and integral cut and release it around the world, including Second Sight (hey!), Arrow and Umbrella.  It wasn't until 2025, when they were able to land this film on a higher gen disc, that there was really cause to upgrade.  And even now, more casual fans may be satisfied with any of the BDs with the Capelight scan, and hold out for a UHD restoration of the integral cut, too.  But there's no denying that they've been topped.  Time comes for us all.  And then we're left carrying our heads around in a small surgical pan.

Update Megaweek, Day 12: ALL the Salem's Lots!

I've never owned Salem's Lot before.  I always appreciated it.  I even saw a few scenes as a little kid when it aired on TV and they were some of the few really scary horror moments for me.  But the fact that it was made for TV did put me off a little in the prime days of DVD.  Couple that with the fact that it never got a special edition, or even could quite decide whether it should be the shorter theatrical cut or widescreen or the TV version or what, and I just never felt compelled to pull the trigger.  But now that Warner Bros has released a killer new HD restoration blu with an all-new audio commentary by Tobe Hooper at a sell-through price, and who could pass that up?  Especially since I've already got the sequel.

Update 12/3/16 - 1/27/17: I figured instead of just having a little, throw-away paragraph about the remake, I'd give that one proper DVD coverage, too, and make this a definitive Salem's Lot post - enjoy!

Update 8/23/21:  I originally ended my post by hoping Scream Factory would give us A Return To Salem's Lot on blu, and now they have.  Ergo, full credit goes to me. 😎  You're welcome, world!

Update 5/12/26: Well, Arrow has issued us now a fairly definitive super edition of the original in 4k.  And in the interest of being thorough, I've added the King of Horror Collection blu-ray, too.  Plus there's been a whole new Salem's Lot movie since the last update, so I added a bit about that as well.  I titled this entry "ALL the Salem's Lots," so now I've gotta live up to it, right?  Also, since this is Update Megaweek, I've also gone ahead and added the Criterion DVD to the Antichrist page.

Stephen King novels don't exactly have a spotless track record for being adapted to film, especially not on television (remember The Langoliers?).  But this one nails it pretty hard, being genuinely creepy and atmospheric with some great, inspired vampire scenes.  If you want an idea of how influential this was, watch Salem's Lot and Fright Night back to back and count all the times they cribbed from it.  James Mason is one cool customer of a villain and David Soul (Hutch of Starsky and Hutch) is surprisingly good as the leading man.  Except for airing in fullscreen with a little extra reliance on close-ups, Hooper does a great job of making this feel like a big-budget film, with a sweeping score and some great effects.  In its full 3+ hour version, Salem's Lot takes it's time building a whole little world of characters to then revel in ransacking.

Is it perfect? Well, no.  As much as I enjoyed seeing Fred Willard perform (well) in a rare, serious part, we do spend the first ninety minutes or so following a sub-plot of him having an affair with Julie Cobb behind George (Law & Order) Dzundza's back, only to have it make absolutely no difference to the overall story (spoilers, I guess? lol).  King likes his over-the-top Norman Rockwell meets broad satire style ensembles, and while Hooper thankfully plays that down and keeps most of the characters real, there are definitely hints poking through.  Plus, the story's Mexican wrap-around does come from the novel, but it's fairly anticlimactic.  And even with Hooper at the helm, a lot of camera set-ups still have a cheaper, flatter feel than we probably would've gotten from an actual movie.  ...But for all of that, it's still pretty great.

thanks to Arrow for finally giving us this shot.

It can also feel a little less "TV safe" if you watch one of the racier versions.  Not that there's a version with nudity or anything weird in it, but there are different cuts, which I'll break down for us now.  There's the original broadcast version, split into two parts (as it aired, one episode per week) a little over 90 minutes each.  Then there's a theatrical version, made for the European market, which cuts the whole thing down to one feature-length film, under two hours long.  Third, there's an "extended movie" version, which is basically the two episodes edited into one long, 3+ hour piece, which is what was included on the laserdisc, DVD and initial blu-ray.

But it gets a little more complicated than just that, as some extra violent bits were shot exclusively for the foreign theatrical version.  Willard puts the shotgun in his mouth, not just on his forehead, and Ed Flanders gets gruesomely impaled.  Confusingly, the DVD and initial blu released a kind of hybrid cut, with the censored Willard shots, but the uncensored Flanders shot.  Arrow does the same thing, except they add an option to watch the broadcast episode with your choice of the censored or uncensored Flanders death.  And they include all three cuts (broadcast, theatrical and extended), so fans should really be satisfied now.

Like I said, I've never owned it, but Salem's Lot has been available on DVD since 1999, and I've managed to get my hands on a copy for this piece.  It's in one of those crappy snapper cases and everything.  It was full-screen, but in this case that's acceptable.  But as you'll see, for a 2016 blu-ray, the master was too old to just slap onto an HD disc like the major studios do with a lot of their catalog titles.  So we get a very welcome, updated transfer.  In 2017, Salem's Lot was included in the 2017 King of Horror Collection blu-ray set, alongside The Shining, Cat's Eye and It.  All of these include the extended hybrid cut.  And now, in 2026, it's been restored in a fancy, limited 2 UHD set from Arrow, which restores the film in 4k and gives us multiple cuts: the theatrical, the extended hybrid, the original broadcast, and a bit of a broadcast hybrid (it includes the gorier antler kill), plus a bunch of new special features.

1) 1999 WB DVD; 2) 2016 WB BD; 3) 2017 WB BD;
4) 2026 Arrow UHD (theatrical); 5) 2026 Arrow UHD (broadcast).

[This shot does not appear in the theatrical cut.]

So, let me just start out by saying that the King of Horror BD is exactly the same disc as the 2016 BD (what I expected; but it was good to check and be sure), and all three cuts on the Arrow discs utilize the same master.  So there are basically three transfers to compare: the DVD,. the BDs and the UHDs.  Warner Bros didn't put out much information on what they've done that I've seen, but it looks like they made taken a fresh scan of the original negatives in 2016.  I hadn't been expecting it to look that good.  There has clearly been some color-timing work done, or undone, as you can see in the blue tint removed from the nighttime shot above.  The aspect shifted from 1.32:1 to 1.37:1 on the BDs and UHDs (I'm really surprised, and a little disappointed, Arrow didn't matte the theatrical cut to 1.85 or so).  And, in fact, they're actually a little zoomed in compared to the DVD.  But before you bemoan any lost slivers of picture, you can briefly catch glimpses of boom mics on the DVD, so the slightly tighter framing is surely more correct.  The biggest gain in resolution comes from the jump to BD, where the DVD just looks soft, smudgy and washed in comparison.  There's certainly another jump to UHD (which we do know was scanned from the OCN, with the interpositive used for some exclusive footage in the theatrical cut; and you really don't notice the seams), you can see grain is more consistent, but it's not as dramatic a step forward in that regard.   The Dolby Vision HDR is a nice gain, too; but again, Warner really did a nice job with their blu, so there's nothing that needed correcting; they're just taking us up a generation.

The DVD has the original mono with optional English and French subtitles.  The blu-rays upgrade the audio to DTS-HD audio and have also included optional English subtitles, plus subs in 13(!) other languages and five audio dubs.  They really went all-out.  Arrow dials it back down, but sticks to what's important.  They have DTS-HD on the broadcast and extended cuts, and LPCM on the theatrical, with optional English subs on every cut.

But is this a special edition?  Ehh... it's right on the edge.  It's main extra, and the first substantial extra this film's ever gotten, is a brand new audio commentary by Tobe Hooper.  And it's pretty good.  On one hand, it's actually great, with Hooper answering a lot of questions that come up as a viewer, plus some interesting anecdotes you never would've thought to wonder about.  But on the other hand, presumably to pace himself for a commentary that's over three hours long with no moderator, he pauses.  Like all the time.  He basically says a paragraph's worth of stuff, pauses, then another paragraph's worth, and so on.  So when he does talk, he's not stretching for things to say or low on energy, but that leaves a lot of dead air interspersed throughout.  It's definitely worth the listen, but also takes patience.  But unlike some other slow commentaries, that patience is rewarded.  That and the theatrical trailer are all that's here, but that's still a big step forward.

the trailer at least gives us a glimpse of what the widescreen framing looks like

And Arrow takes another big step forward.  Besides adding the multiple versions, they've added a bunch of new extras.  The Hooper commentary and the trailer are still here, and honestly, they're still the best and most important stuff.  We also get two new audio commentaries, both by experts.  One is Bill Ackerman and Amanda Reyes, which is a little clumsy but very informed and worth checking out.  And the other is by Chris Alexander and sucks.  It's basically just him casually carrying on about whatever pops into his head for the entire run of the film.  Then there's a bunch of video essays and on-camera interviews by/ with experts, and most of these are skippable, too (though they're all better than the self-indulgent Alexander commentary).  Specifically, there are five: an interview with King biographer Douglas Winter, a video essay by critic Grady Hendrix, an interview with Mick Garris, a video essay by film critic Heather Wixson and a video essay by podcast hosts Joe Lipsett & Trace Thurman.  The problem with all of these is that they all basically just repeat info already delivered by Ackerman and Reyes' commentary.  For example, the podcast guys give a smart interpretation of the film's theme of gay panic, but Ackerman already went into all that in the commentary, so they don't wind up saying anything we didn't already just hear.  So I'd recommend listening to that one commentary (and Hooper's, of course), but skipping the rest unless you enjoy being bored to tears.

One neat treat Arrow came up with is a video tour of the original shooting locations, though.  That one definitely is worth your time.  They also throw in two stills gallery (including the entire original shooting script), commercial bumpers, the edited antler scene as a separate clip, and a trailer for the sequel.  And if you're a fan of swag, Arrow's limited edition comes equipped.  There's a double-sided, fold-out poster, a slipbox which itself comes in  slipcover, reversible artwork for the amary case, a cute sticker, an Arrow card (mine was for Red Sonja), and a bound booklet with multiple essays and a couple vintage interviews.

And why yes, there was a 2004 remake starring Rob Lowe, as well.  To its credit, it's also a two-part TV series, meaning it didn't have to compress the characters and details into 90 minutes.  It updates the story to 2004, forsaking the scary atmosphere for internet references, lame quips and rapping, but it's got an interesting supporting cast, including Donald Sutherland, Andre Braugher and Rutger Hauer.  Some scenes are new, while others are direct re-stagings of the 1979 film.  The scene where the two men wait in the morgue for the dead wife to rise from under her sheet while the one tapes together a cross out of tongue depressors is a beat-for-beat reproduction of the original scene, right up until the end, where some awful CGI takes over, covering up the actress's face and then she flies up into the ceiling and turns into sparkly computer dust.  But then, there's a whole new subplot about a hunchback who works at a garbage dump and has a crush on a high school girl, which to be fair does actually come right from the book.

So I guess the idea is that this is a more faithful "return to the book," which I appreciate.  It at least justifies this version's existence and gives serious King devotees something to pour through.  But like The Shining and its 1997 remake, it really just shows that talented filmmakers tend to know better than literary purists what works best on screen.  And it doesn't help that a lot of the acting and staging is awfully stilted, sometimes to the point of being downright embarrassing.  You've never seen so many over-the-shoulder dialogue shots in your life, Lowe's narration is downright painful, and the CGI looks like cartoonish garbage, unlike the effects from the 1970s that still pack quite a punch.  So give it a pass unless you're a serious fan who just wants to see what's been changed or kept faithful between this, the original film, and the novel.  The most notable being that the vampire Barlowe is back to being a speaking part instead of a snarling blue monster, some major scenes take place in a different order, the priest plays more of a role and there's no Mexico material.  And as I said, that Mexico stuff was in the book.  Plus with the film's need to modernize, I'm not really sure it can be called more faithful.  It's just... differently faithful.

2004 WB DVD.

But if you are determined to see for yourself, Warner Bros did at least put it out as a no frills, widescreen DVD in late 2004.  And I mean really no frills.  No trailer, no nuffin'.  The film looks fine, though, presented in 1.78:1, which is presumably just how it originally aired on the TNT network.  It's alright for a TV show on an older DVD, suffering a bit in the compression department but otherwise fine.  It's anamorphic, has a 5.1 mix and optional English, Spanish and French subtitles.  Apparently though, this was shot on 35mm, so in theory a fresh HD scan of the negatives could yield a nice improvement.  But that would require people taking an interest in 2004's Salem's Lot, which doesn't seem to be in its future.  And I'm fine with that; I wouldn't buy a blu-ray special edition of this anyway.  Update 2026: Actually, as of December 2024, there is a barebones Spanish greymarket blu-ray out now from Llamentol; that probably is at least a slim upgrade, if anyone cares enough.

In 2024, we got one more Salem's Lot, this one made as a streaming exclusive for HBO Max.  It's feature-length, and therefore very abridged; but it's also the least faithful adaptation because of the wild liberties it takes.  Like, it ends with a crazy shotgun wielding lady chasing our heroes through a drive-in movie theater surrounded by dozens of flaming vampires.  Given that director Gary Dauberman's only other movie has been an Annabelle sequel, though, this is less awful than I was expecting - it's actually kinda fun!  Every time it replicates a scene from the actual Salem's Lot story, it does it much worse, but whenever he starts doing his own thing, it's an energetic, entertaining vampire flick that's surprisingly well shot.  There's no physical release of this film, which I find a little surprising.  Given the recognition value of King's name and the title alone, I'm sure a cheap, barebones blu-ray would sell well better than a lot of titles that are currently sitting on Walmart and Target shelves across the country.  Or you'd think some label in Germany would license it.  But no, as of this writing, it remains a streaming-only title in every region.

A Return To Salem's Lot cannot be said to be a true sequel to Salem's Lot.  Not only do none of the characters return or get a mention, but the history of the Salem's Lot vampires as told in Return directly contradicts what we saw in the original.  This cannot be the same town after the vampires took over in the first one.  But, having watched them back to back for the first time after previously only having seen them years apart, there are enough similarities that I'm sure Cohen was at least making intentional nods back besides placing more vamps in the same town.  Both have a middle-aged man and a teenage boy for protagonists.  Both films' opening scenes are in Mexico, which is an odd choice each time.  There's a scene in Return of a child vampire hovering outside a window beckoning the teenage boy to let them in, a clear reprisal of one of the original's most iconic scenes.  Of course, in both films, the vampires mostly look like typical humans with fangs, but the biggest baddest one is a blue, monstrous one.  And there are plenty more I could list, including this fun fact: because they couldn't afford to burn a whole house down, Hooper took B-roll footage that wasn't used in Elia Kazan's 1969 film, The Arrangement. And when a completely different house burns down in A Return To Salem's Lot, Cohen clearly used the same Kazan footage.

1) 2016 WB BD of Salem's Lot; 2) 2006 WB DVD of A Return to Salem's Lot.

Salem's Lot fans looking for more of the same are surely disappointed by this film.  Scary vampires really aren't what's for sale this time around.  But if you're a Larry Cohen fan, you should be happy.  There are his usual clever moments, there's Michael Moriarity giving another great and quirky lead performance, and just as you think maybe you're getting a little bored with his character and he's becoming too much of a generic, straight leading man... in comes Samuel Fuller as one of the most entertaining characters in any vampire movie ever.  Also look for Tara Reid looking lovely in her first acting role, Andrew Duggan in his final role and Cohen regular James Dixon, who this time also gets a co-writing credit.  This isn't a terribly ambitious picture; and Cohen's let it be known that he only made the film as part of a contract so Warner Bros would fund It's Alive 3.  It's no passion project.  But if you want a low-key enjoyable watch, hey, here ya go.

For ages, A Return To Salem's Lot was unavailable on DVD, which was awfully frustrating for a Cohen fan like myself.  But in 2006, Warner Bros released it in Germany under the title Salem II: Die Ruckkehr, as an anamorphic widescreen disc to boot!  More recently, in 2010, Warner Archives finally released it, and that's anamorphic widescreen, too.  It's an MOD DV-R, though, so I'd still stick with the import.  But none of that matters now, because this week, Scream Factory is releasing the film on blu for the first time, with an all new 4k scan of the OCN!

1) 2006 WB DVD; 2) 2021 SF BD.

Yeah, it's a little soft and obviously standard def, but I just fired the DVD up on my 65" television and it still looks surprisingly good.  Solid darks, no interlacing.  It's basically 16x9 exactly, but with a little bit of blank space in what would've been the over-scan area, giving us a 1.79:1 aspect ratio.  For a plain old DVD, you couldn't really ask for much more.  But for a blu-ray, of course you can.  And Scream Factory delivers.  Now framed in a proper 1.85:1, it's surprisingly tighter not just along the bottom, but on the left.  So, I'll call that just a slim improvement.  But otherwise, the new scan is a strong improvement, with the new scan bringing fine detail grain to fresh, authentic life.  The encode could be a little more natural, with grain getting a little pixelated, especially for a barebones disc (more on that in a sec), but this ain't a UHD.  For a BD, this is quite satisfying and we've clearly come a long way.  Colors are more vibrant and restored to authentic tones (the DVD was a bit on the purple side).  Honestly, I would've taken the old master slapped onto a BD disc, just for the extra clarity.  So this new 4k transfer is a treat.

Yes, the German DVD is English friendly.  It has optional German subtitles, but they're removable directly from the menu or the remote, and it gives you the choice of the original English audio (mono in 2.0) or a German dub.  Unfortunately, it has no extras, not even the trailer (neither does the Warner Archives disc), except for a slightly amusing commercial that plays on start-up.  But it does come in a cool, red case.

Scream Factory boosts the 2.0 track to DTS-HD (though it's still a bit hissy) and adds optional English subtitles, making this the definitive presentation of the film by every count.  The sole disappointment is the extras.  There basically aren't any, apart from the trailer ...though even just that does technically put it ahead of the previous discs.  I felt sure we'd at least get a commentary from the King Cohen guy, but oh well.

So at this point, I really can't ask for anything more for Salem's Lot on home video.  I guess somebody will probably release the 2024 version on disc someday, and maybe another region will come out with another edition of one or more of the others some day.  At this point, I'm fine either way.  Salem's Lot has been thoroughly handled, and we can rest peacefully in our coffins.