Romero's "Dead" movies on blu-ray

saltysam · Post by **saltysam** » 11 Jan 2009, 15:36

Being laid up has it's advantages and this week i whizzed through Romero's Dead films on blu-ray.

Night Of The Living Dead 4/5 The black and white original has lost some of it's power these days but it's still an excellent movie. Duane Jones plays the hero very well,though i couldn't warm to him like most of the cast he was a bit of an ass at times quite ironic that ultimately Mr Cooper's insistence that the cellar was safestproved to be right.powerful ending as well. the optimum region B Coded transfer looks probably as good as this film ever will.

Dawn Of The Dead 5/5 The daddy of all zombie films remains an all time classic.epic in scope and running time (for a horror movie) the brilliance starts with the chaotic credit sequence and just gets better.great performances all round,the blu-ray looks nice but only offers the theatrical cut,i prefer the cannes version personally.can see this getting a re-release to mirror the ultimated dvd set.Anchor Bay BD is region-free.

Day Of The Dead 4/5 Follow up to Dawn is a fine film in it's own right and is certainly the goriest of the films. Army and scientist survivors live very uneasily together in a compound surrounded by the zombies.solid BD transfer.Anchor Bay USA BD is region-free.

Land Of The Dead 3.5/5 Romero gets a big budget and some well known actors and the results are good but not great.plenty of gore but Simon Baker makes a bland hero,Asia Argento is wasted and Hopper is Hopper.John Leguizmo is good though.again a decent BD transfer of a recent film.the univeral usa BD is unrated and region-free.

Diary Of The Dead 3/5 A Low budget "Blair Witch" type filmed on camcorder entry in the series,this is better than what i had heard but still very much the least of Romero's zombie films.fast moving and certainly entertaining enough.the Dimension USA blu-ray is region-free.

Killer Meteor · Post by **Killer Meteor** » 11 Jan 2009, 16:21

The HD transfer for Night is quite zoomed in, compared to the old Elite disc,

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 11 Jan 2009, 16:54

Yeah but the Elite is not in the same league of images quality comared to the HD version, still its not major cropping only a few %, but I suspect someone somewhere in the world will easily improve on that transfer, and add tonnes of extras etc.. so it wont be on top for too long.

Diary Of The Dead = Garbage

Just go watch Knightriders, as Diary aint a romero film at all in any way to me

saltysam · Post by **saltysam** » 11 Jan 2009, 17:57

can't see your problem with Diary apart from the fact it's nowhere near as good as his other films. not great but certainly ok.i still have the old millenium edition dvd of Night and as good as it looks the BD is far preferable.

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 11 Jan 2009, 18:31

Diary, well the acting is esspecially hideous, its like a sudent film a lot of the actors are just so awful it guts the film from the word go. As is the sickening writing and way its shot in general, the whole Mummy comedy element thing etc... makes me want to puke my guts out.

Mind you its not as bad as Day of the Dead 2 Contagion, which I recently watched

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 11 Jan 2009, 19:52

I've not see it but going by the captures on Bullets it looks a lot more than a few percent cropped. Fair enough if it's much better though.

saltysam · Post by **saltysam** » 12 Jan 2009, 01:08

romerojpg wrote:Diary, well the acting is esspecially hideous, its like a sudent film

the characters are students

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 12 Jan 2009, 17:18

bradavon wrote:I've not see it but going by the captures on Bullets it looks a lot more than a few percent cropped. Fair enough if it's much better though.

Well you do the maths then and work it out (I am sure some people do that on some sites

), it wont be more than 5% image cropping

it varies from scenes to scene, but really its a tiny amount in the scheme of things.

The charecters are indeed students, sadly badly acting ones

that doesnt really explain why everyone else sucks as well, including that awful British teacher

Still when its very cheap, I will see it again and listen to what poor excuses they come up with in the commentary, as thats all the did in the Land of the Dead commentary

"I did not shoot this, it was second unit"

great get out of jail card that.

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 12 Jan 2009, 19:07

From best to least...

DAWN 78 - the "Zombie" movie. It's the characters and suspense that makes it work. I liked it in spite of the excessive gore not because of it.

NIGHT 90 - Slick remake that respects the original and has better acting and a stronger heroine.

NIGHT 68 - Budget shocker is still worthwhile decades later

DAY 85 - Not bad, but not as good as its predecessors

DAWN 04 - MTV-era remake adds nothing, but could've been worse.

LAND - There's a germ of an idea, but the execution is subpar.

Haven't seen DIARY or the DAY remake and don't have any immediate plans to.

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 12 Jan 2009, 19:15

Day Remake, even I still have not seen that yet haha

saltysam · Post by **saltysam** » 12 Jan 2009, 20:45

Day remake is crap.