NOTLD (Colorized by "Off Color Films")

[nobody]

I just finished watching the colorized version of "Night of the Living Dead", produced by "Off Color Films", and I enjoyed it a lot! I highly recommend everyone check it out.

Now, before you guys start jumping all over me, no, I'm not normally a fan of colorization- or dramatic retouching of any old films (I've been an avid hated of the molested original "Star Wars" flicks, for example). But the original images in NOTLD were so dark and hard to see that the colorization actually helped it leaps and bounds.

Plus, I don't like George Romero films at all. I think he's a highly overrated director. So I thought Mike Nelson's (optional) MST3K style commentary really put the movie in it's place.

I scored it for under $8 on ebay. It was well worth the price.

[Scott]

I think that NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD may be even better in color because NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD really didn't take advantage of the b/w cinematography like CASABLANCA or an ORSON WELLES film.

Also alot of the DVD transfers available are really poor and faded. A colorized remastered copy of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD would probably be great.

[DaveMunger]

I always figure anything that you want to see in b&w, you can just watch with the color turned down.

[nobody]

This particular version of NOTLD offers both the colorized version AND the b&w version. I didn't even glance at the b&w version, but I'm sure it's remastered to some extent. Still, I'll stick with watching the color version of this flick from now on...

[blkrider]

Until you've seen the Millenium Edition DVD of NOTLD, you haven't seen the movie at all.   It's not hard to see at all--it looks like a new film.

[Chris K.]

Scott wrote:

> I think that NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD may be even better in
> color because NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD really didn't take
> advantage of the b/w cinematography like CASABLANCA or an ORSON
> WELLES film.
>
> Also alot of the DVD transfers available are really poor and
> faded. A colorized remastered copy of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD
> would probably be great.
>

Man Scott, I am really distressed here. I mean, what DVD release of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD did you watch. Was it the Madacy release? The Diamond release? If so, on either of these titles, you have been gyped, my friend. And the reason is because the digital transfers are taken from bad 35mm prints (which were the same release prints my by the films original distributor Continental-Walter Reade Sterling, Inc. and even those release prints didn't look too good when they were first projected back in 1968). Therefore, the black-and-white image does look like crap because cheap public domain DVD companies don't remaster or restore the audio/video quality. That and in reality it's not Romero's fault per se; it was a result of bad print releases made by the distributor who, in turn, cheated Romero and his The Latent Image company. And may I say that if you do get this crappy colorized DVD from "Off Color Films" and decide to turn the color down to get that "authentic" black and white feeling of the original, big mistake! By doing that, it makes the image look far too darker and muddier, due to the digital coloring of the image. But then, you do have an optition of watching the original in black-and-white, however I do assume the entire transfer was taken from a 35mm print that has seen better days.

If you want to see a "good" presentation of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, then please by all means get the Elite Entertainment "Millenium Edition" DVD. Why? Because it's been digitally remastered from the ORIGINAL 35mm CAMERA NEGATIVE (and that's a good thing) and the black-and-white cinematography looks absolutely gorgeous, reaching towards CASABLANCA or CITIZEN KANE level. Trust me, when you see Elite's presentation, you won't believe what you are seeing.

[Scott]

I think my was a Brentwood copy. It was a very poor transfer. Part of one of those Brentwood 10 horror film collections I bought a couple years ago. Very faded.