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Dom Robinson reviews

Dawn of the Dead: Director's Cut

When there's no more room in hell
the dead will walk the Earth.

Distributed by

Cat.no: 74321 443663
Released: October 4th 1999
Cert: 18
Running time: 139 minutes
Year: 1978
Pressing: 1999
Region(s): 2 (UK PAL)
Chapters: 25 plus extras
Sound: Mono
Languages: English
Subtitles: None
Fullscreen: 4:3
16:9-enhanced: No
Macrovision: No
Disc Format: DVD 5
Price: £15.99
Extras : Scene index, Picture Gallery, Audio Commentary

Director:

George A. Romero

The Crazies, Creepshow, Day of the Dead, Martin, Night of the Living Dead, Season of the Witch

Producer:

Richard P. Rubinstein

Screenplay:

George A. Romero

Music:

Dario Argento

Cast:

Stephen: David Emge

Peter: Ken Foree

Roger: Scott H. Reiniger

Francine: Gaylen Ross

Motorcycle Raider: Tom Savini

TV Director: George A. Romero (uncredited)

Dawn of the Dead: Director's Cut is the middle section in George A. Romero's Dead Trilogy, preceeeded by Night of the Living Dead (1968) and followed by Day of the Dead (1985), the latter of which should also be available on DVD now courtesy of Arrow Films.

This is a battle of good against evil. The evil are the zombies that are walking the Earth and must be stopped, while the good guys are everyone else that haven't yet been turned. Brains blown out, hickeys that go one step too far and many more nasty surprises - just the essential elements that make up a gore-fest like this, such as the zombie who gets inadvertantly "scalped" by helicopter's blades. After that, get set to kill 'em all down the shopping mall!

For some reason the BBFC have stepped in and decided to make some slight cuts to this film. I don't know why because they base their decisions on context and it's clear that any murders in this film are not ones that can be easily imitated - after all, when did you last find some zombies in your town (and not just the staff that work at Dixons) ? The cuts, which only last six seconds, are :

a male zombie's head being blown off by a shot-gun (one second)
a black zombie biting his wife's arm (one second: we still see the bite but not the spurt of blood immediately afterwards. Having just seen him gruesomely bite into her neck, all displayed in full colour, this cut which follows seems strangely well-placed as it leaves something to the imagination and works better that way)
Two zombie kids being blown away (four seconds: a shame we didn't see this - it might have given John Ritter an answer to his "Problem Child" :)

The picture quality here is surprisingly good for a film that's 21 years old. There's a few flecks on the print, moreso near the start of the film, but a lot of the time the print is quite clean with no artifacts causing any problems. Although it's presented in a 4:3 fullscreen ratio, it can comfortably be zoomed-in to fill a widescreen TV. The average bitrate is a low 3.93Mb/s, occasionally peaking over 6Mb/s.

The sound is mono and functional in terms of gun-fire and explosions, but also has a dodgy synthesised score.

Extras :

Chapters :

The disc has 25 chapter covering the 139 minutes of film and could use a few more, but it's certainly a lot more than the Americans got with a mere NINE for the same film.

Alas, no theatrical trailer is included.

Languages & Subtitles :

The film is in English only, with no subtitles. This seems to be the case for all BMG releases.

Stills Gallery :

At the rate of a page each, stills are available for most of the main characters in the film, plus many zombies and it makes for a nice addition to the disc.

Audio Commentary :

This DVD contains an exclusive commentary by Tom Savini, the man responsible for all the gory special effects which helped develop such an international cult following, plus additional chat from several of his colleagues who worked with him on the film.

Menu :

The main menu is silent, but has some cool animation of bullets being fired across the screen, with blood gushing out at irregular intervals, in keeping with the theme of the film.

For some reason, there's no "Play Movie" option. If you've already been viewing part of the film and have come back to the main menu, "Return To Movie" will take you back, but to start the film from scratch, you'll either need to select the first scene yourself, or reboot the DVD altogether since it will begin after the copyright info has been displayed.

Overall, my main feeling about this film is that if you're a fan of the PC and Playstation game Resident Evil and are fed up waiting for Capcom to turn their creation into reality, then go and get hold of this film. Watch in a darkened room and it will instill the same sense of fear as the zombies slowly approach their soon-to-be-victims.

More power to BMG too for getting the Director's Cut here, albeit in a slightly-censored form. This version runs 139 mins 19 secs (6 secs cut), while the version previously only available on video, several years back, lasted 120 mins 8 secs (with 12 secs cut).

Fans of the film may have a tough choice choosing between this and the USA release. $24.95 for the latter gets you a widescreen version (1.66:1) with only 9 chapter stops, but is totally uncut. However, since it doesn't contain the audio commentary, completists may end up getting both.

The director's cut has been released in one form or another in Finland, while Australia have an uncut version, but Germany's release is heavily cut and in Norway it's been banned altogether.

PS. And if the manager of my local Dixons branch wants to write to me about the above comment relating to his staff then feel free. However, he never replied to my letters of complaint about their shoddy service and given his incompetence I doubt he even knows which way round to sit on the lavatory.

FILM	 		: *****
PICTURE QUALITY 	: ***
SOUND QUALITY		: **
EXTRAS			: **
-------------------------------
OVERALL			: ***

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.

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