UHD Review A Few Words About A few words about...™ Dawn of the Dead (2004)-- in 4k UHD (1 Viewer)

[Robert Harris]

Scream Factory's new 4k UHD of Zack Snyder's 2004 re-make of George Romero's 1979 sequel to his own 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead, lends itself to interesting comparisons.

The 1979 has a budget was about 500k, with half coming from Dario Argento for Italian rights, and a percentage to the owner of the mall in lieu of rental. When asked for comment about the re-make Mr. Romero was quoted as saying...

"Why?"

The 2004 re-make was budgeted at about forty times that amount.

Both are in color. The 1979 is shot flat to be projected at 1.85, while the 2004 was shot S35 for a final 2.35 and 2k DI.

The 1979 was released monaural, but there were apparently 4-track mag prints in Germany, while the 2004 was multi-format, DTS, DD and SDDS.

While the 1979 has no "stars," it does offer Roy Frumkes as "First Pie-in-Face" Zombie, while the 2004 gives us Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames and others.

While the 1979 seems unavailable domestically on 4k, Scream Factory is releasing the 2004 via a new scan from Universal.

And that 4k scan is a glorious affair. Needle sharp, and derived from the OCN, its colors, densities, black and white levels are a thing to behold. It beautifully mimics a new 35mm print, only with better stability.

Reviewers seem to love the 1979 original, and find the re-make big budget fun.

New York Times reviewer, Elvis Mitchell referred to it as "the world's most expensively made Troma film."

Regardless of which side of the fence you sit, both versions are fun in the horrific vein, and Scream Factory's 2004 will make a great many fans happy. It comes with both versions of the film - theatrical as well as unrated. Unrated is on the 4k disc, while two other Blu-rays give you the lower resolution Theatrical along with a matching Unrated.

No cramps pixels in this set. It hits the malls on 31 January, and has more than the requisite amount of extras - ton of them - to place it very much on Criterion turf.

Image – 5 (Dolby Vision)

Audio – 5 (DTS HD-MA 5.1)

Pass / Fail – Pass

Plays nicely with projectors - Yes

Makes use of and works well in 4k - 4.25

Upgrade from Blu-ray - Definately

Recommended

RAH


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[jayembee]

Hunh. I assumed this was Romero's version. I'm not a big fan of horror films, but I happened to catch this one on cable way back when, and was surprised that I liked it. Mostly for Sarah Polley, Jake Weber, and Ving Rhames. I'll consider picking this one up.

 

[JoshZ]

Both are in color. The 1979 is shot flat to be projected at 1.85, while the 2004 was shot S35 for a final 2.35 and 2k DI...

And that 4k scan is a glorious affair. Needle sharp, and derived from the OCN, its colors, densities, black and white levels are a thing to behold. It beautifully mimics a new 35mm print, only with better stability.

Does this mean that it disregards the original 2K DI?

 

[JohnRice]

It’s just a fun movie. I’m in.

 

[Robert Harris]

Does this mean that it disregards the original 2K DI?

I believe it does. The scan has a beautiful grain structure.

 

[Richard Kaufman]

I agree with Romero, and will stick with the original.

 

[Vincent_P]

Shout's pre-release technical info on this suggested the additional unrated footage was still upscaled from 2K and then intercut with the new 4K negative scan of the theatrical cut. Did you notice any occasional "decrease" in image quality for any of the unrated cut footage, or does it mix well? As an example of material that's not in the theatrical cut, the scenes of them initially breaking into the mall. In the theatrical cut, it cuts directly from them observing the mall from afar outside, to the toilet being thrown through the store window with the group already in the mall. All the in-between scenes- the group jimmying open the back door and the one-armed zombie rushing at them, and them then slowly entering the mall and store and observing the toilet- are only in the "unrated cut" and thus according to Shout should be 2K upscales. Also on the older masters, this footage was noticeably a lot "dirtier" than the rest of the film.

Vincent

 

[Robert Harris]

Shout's pre-release technical info on this suggested the additional unrated footage was still upscaled from 2K and then intercut with the new 4K negative scan of the theatrical cut. Did you notice any occasional "decrease" in image quality for any of the unrated cut footage, or does it mix well? As an example of material that's not in the theatrical cut, the scenes of them initially breaking into the mall. In the theatrical cut, it cuts directly from them observing the mall from afar outside, to the toilet being thrown through the store window with the group already in the mall. All the in-between scenes- the group jimmying open the back door and the one-armed zombie rushing at them, and them then slowly entering the mall and store and observing the toilet- are only in the "unrated cut" and thus according to Shout should be 2K upscales. Also on the older masters, this footage was noticeably a lot "dirtier" than the rest of the film.

Vincent

They did make the point that trims used were derived from an IP.