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Traveta reviews
MGM Home Video
- Cert: R
- Cat.no: 1003675
- Running time: 91 minutes
- Year: 1984
- Pressing: 2002
- Region(s): 1, NTSC
- Chapters: 16
- Sound: Dolby Digital 1.0
- Languages: English, Spanish
- Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
- Widescreen: 1.85:1; Fullscreen 4:3
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: No
- Disc Format: DVD 18
- Price: $14.98
- Extras:Audio Commentary, “Designing the Dead” featurette, conceptualart, TV Spots, theatrical trailers.
Director:
- Dan O’Bannon
Screenplay:
- Dan O’Bannon
Cast:
- Burt: Clu Gulager
Frank: James Karen
Ernie: Don Calfa
Freddy: Thom Mathews
Tina: Beverly Hartley
Chuck: John Philbin
Spider: Miguel A. Nunez Jr.
Trash: Linnea Quigley
I think I’ve adressed this before but the eighties had so many cult classics.Movies that didn’t do so well then and found a fan base overthe years. This movie did do some business actually and had developed afan base over the course of 18 years. One of the creators of theoriginal Night of the Living Dead had agreed with George Romero thatthey could both use the Living Dead name in future projects. His namewas John Russo and he set out to make a straight forward sequel to Nightbut decided it had already been done well inDawn of the Dead.So what was the next logical approach: turn it into a comedy/horror flickinstead. So, in away this movie is really an unofficial sequel.
The story is pretty simple really. In this movie, Night of the LivingDead was based on a true story but changed from the real thing. A gasleaked into a morgue long ago and caused the bodies to reanimate. Thearmy rounded all the zombies up and placed them in containers. By somemix up, the containers found their way to a medical warehouse. Twoworkers there decide to investigate one of the containers when it ripsopen and shoots the gas at them. The gas reanimates a corpse and theyhave to burn it. They burn it in a crematorium and the smoke mixes withthe rain and so forth. The rain seeps into the graveyard and instantzombies. A group of punks also happen to holding a party in thegraveyard (one has this really funny line, he’s dressed in the typical’80s punk outfit: “This ain’t no fucking costume, this is a way oflife!”) and are caught in the middle of it all.
The zombies in this only eat brains plus they run and talk too. I’m abig fan of the old fashioned zombies, slow and dim-witted, like those inDawn of the Dead. I don’t think they’d work well in this one and it doesgive it a level of scare that the Dead films left out sometimes.
A pretty cool movie from the 80s. Of course, it does have it’s flaws.The script was supposed to be cheesy but some lines are just WAY TOOcheesy. The two medical warehouse workers scream and groan as they turninto zombies and it comes off as overdone. Just watch Frank as hecoughs, throws up, and screams. That’s funny. But even these flawsshouldn’t keep you from enjoying this fun movie.
MGM continues to please DVD fans with good transfers, extras, and acheap price. Anyway, this is the best the movie has ever looked. Colorsare nicely rendered and the movie just doesn’t look 18 years old.However, grain is apparent sometimes, mostly in the graveyard. There area few scenes which feature the sky and such which are hampered byscratches on the print. Just watch the one scene featuring smoke comingout of the crematorium to see what I mean. But this is still a greattransfer and it’s flaws are easily overlooked. Just be amazed at howgood it held up since 1984.
Only two tracks are included. An English 1.0 mono track and a Spanishmono track. This is the original track but I woner if MGM could havespruced it up to 5.1 or even 2.0 for that matter. It’s not a bad trackthough and you’ll never have any problems with dialouge. Sometimes itsounded tinny when actors screamed but it’s not terrible.
Extras are pretty good for this release. An interesting commentary, afeaturette on the zombies, conceptual art, and trailers round it out.Not bad considering the cheap price of the disc.
Overall, MGM has delivered another great DVD and for only $14.98 youalmost have to get it. A fun movie for horror buffs alike with just ahint of comedy thrown in. Oh yeah, and the box glows in the dark too.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALLEmailTraveta
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.