8mm Forum: Night of the Living Dead

This is topic Night of the Living Dead in forum 8mm Print Reviews at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by Alan Rik (Member # 73) on April 22, 2006, 01:11 AM:

I have just finished re-recording Night of the Living Dead into STEREO! Welll simulated i think..i just transferred the DVD. Now I originally ordered the DVD from the UK so I could use the Sync Box. However the DVD I got is a horrible version that all of you should stay away from! Its from a company called Oracle Home Entertainment. They replaced the original music and added their own. And its truly horrible!! Bad synth stuff.
So I ended up having to use an NTSC DVD. Which meant every 10-12 minutes I would lose sync and have to start again from a quiet point. It is definitely worth it however. And another interesting thing about the Super 8 film is that it is even a few frames or so longer than the DVD version! At one point It lost sync and I noticed that the DVD had some content removed!!! Only a few seconds but still..the Super 8 version is the more COMPLETE version. Take that DVD!! [Smile]

The quality of the picture is excellent. There are some scenes that are a tad bit washed out but overall the picture gets a 8 for quality.
The sound on this copy had attempted to be re-recorded so i cant comment on how good the original sound was.
The content is still pretty chilly and effective. I sat here doiing the dub and the scene with the little girl at the end who kills her mother with the spade is still creepy stuff.
Great film and I am happy to have this in my collection!

Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on April 22, 2006, 10:01 AM:

Rik,

That's great! Re-recording NOLD has been on the back burner for awhile (along with a thousand other projects). One thing that's made me hold off is the hope that I would find a good print. I've gotten three poor quality prints off eBay. Two had awful contrast (the opening titles are barely legible), one was out of sync, and one had audio bleed through (you can hear the previous shot's audio faintly in the background).

I believe that Anchor Bay put out a 30th anniversary edition DVD in 1999 that added a new musical score. Perhaps yours was the export version of that monstrosity.

Doug

Posted by Andrew Wilson (Member # 538) on April 26, 2006, 03:34 PM:

not bad eh rik for old tech stuff.TAKE THAT DVD.SUPER8MM FOREVER.andy.p.s surely the director what have had a say on the content of the dvd.how that company was aloud to release that classic chiller is beyound me.

Posted by Joe Taffis (Member # 4) on April 26, 2006, 06:16 PM:

[Wink]

[ March 05, 2012, 09:53 AM: Message edited by: Joe Taffis ]

Posted by James N. Savage 3 (Member # 83) on May 03, 2006, 11:00 AM:

Joe's right-

There are several movies that are listed on this review site "multiple" times (Master and Commander, Matrix, etc) and it would be nice if titles of identical headings for review could be grouped together [Wink]

(just to keep things tidy [Cool]

)

Thanks moderators!

Nick.

[ May 04, 2006, 06:33 AM: Message edited by: James N. Savage 3 ]

Posted by Timothy Ramzyk (Member # 718) on October 11, 2012, 01:31 AM:

I had a poopy Niles print and replaced it with a much more respectable Red Fox Films print. Who had the best I wonder since soo many put it out? Thunderbird claimed to be working from some sort of pre-print material, and I was always tempted, but couldn't bare the idea of buying NOTLD a third time to find out.

Posted by Joe Taffis (Member # 4) on October 11, 2012, 12:26 PM:

The DeMaio Film Service print is the best one I've seen....

Posted by Timothy Ramzyk (Member # 718) on October 11, 2012, 03:31 PM:

Never heard of them? Did they do their own work, or were they a distributor?

So far Niles, Red Fox, Thunderbird, Reel Images, Select Film...I suppose it would be easier to list those that didn't offer NOTLD.It sounds like a lot of these places obtained prints from the same labs, but I think Niles and Thunderbird PD titles are home cooked. Judging by the quality I wouldn't be surprised if Niles stuff wasn't primarily made from dupe-negs of other distributors 16 and 8mm positives.

Posted by James N. Savage 3 (Member # 83) on October 12, 2012, 06:01 AM:

Timothy- add Hollywood Film Exchange to your list of distributors of NOTLD! I saw several different prints from them, and my print as well. The strange thing was that some reels looked very good, and others didn't. Plus, some would come with scratches on the print.

Years later (in the 80's), my friend and I combined reels from 3 different prints to make one good quality print of this movie!

I never did figure out which distributor released NOTLD on super 8 with the original "WALTER REED ORGANIZATION" logo on the front. Those prints are more rare. (You can Google that for more info from Wikipedia- interesting reading).

James.

Posted by Timothy Ramzyk (Member # 718) on October 12, 2012, 01:54 PM:

My Niles print had a barely legible "Hollywood Film exchange" logo on the front. Maybe they were duping from their prints?

Posted by James N. Savage 3 (Member # 83) on October 13, 2012, 05:56 AM:

Yes- my print also has the Hollywood Film Exchange logo. I'm surprised your Niles print had that too.

The Walter Reed logo had a more professional look, and had music as well. It was on all of the TV prints and theatrical prints back in the 60's and 70's.

James.

Posted by Tim Robinson-Ayer (Member # 2521) on October 13, 2012, 11:39 AM:

Part of why there are so many prints of varying quality out there for this is that for a long time it was considered to be public domain. If my understanding of the story is correct Mr. Romero found some of the legal paperwork substantiating copyright while they were working on the deluxe laser disc that was released.

Posted by Timothy Ramzyk (Member # 718) on October 13, 2012, 02:50 PM:

Well, there hasn't been dozens Blu-ray releases of NOTLD the way there were in every other conceivable medium, maybe Romero or somebody found a way to nail it down again.

I always felt bad for Romero, it seemed like he got screwed over technicalities on this.

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