Anchor Bay's "Day of the Dead" 2 disc SE (review) (1 Viewer)

[Randy Korstick]

I too think this is a big mistake and should not be overlooked just because this is not "Citizen Kane". To horror fans this is one of the "Citizen Kane's" and top Horror titles sell very well on DVD so it justifies a good and proper release.
I think the Suspiria problem that was never fixed by Anchor Bay is an even bigger issue. By remixing the soundtrack they completly changed the impact of the movie. I think most who think the Suspiria problem was no big deal either never saw Suspiria before this release or may have only seen it once. Those that saw this movie many times know the difference. Half of what made this movie so scary and freaky is the great soundtrack and the way it was mixed to dominate the soundtrack. Anchor Bay's remix lowered the volume of the music nearly in half and pushed the music to the background. This greatly diminished the impact of this film and I'm not surprised to read so many reviews and comments of 1st time viewers of Suspiria that say its overrated or not that scary. Well in a way they are right because Anchor Bays remixed Suspiria is not as scary as the original.
So when the original Star Wars trilogy is released on DVD, if they remix the soundtrack and lower the music in half and push it to the background is it ok and just expecting too much perfection from a DVD release if someone complains? This is yet another reason why the original audio should always be included if they are going to do a remix.
I hope Anchor Bay will start correcting these mistakes instead of letting them slide.

 

[Kenneth English]

I too think this is a big mistake and should not be overlooked just because this is not "Citizen Kane". To horror fans this is one of the "Citizen Kane's" and top Horror titles sell very well on DVD so it justifies a good and proper release.

I guess my idea of a "proper release" is just a lot more forgiving than yours (and a lot of other board members).

I'd like every disc Anchor Bay produces to be a perfect representation of the film on it but that just isn't going to happen with the sort of movies they put out. They obviously love what they're doing and put mucho care into the DVDs they produce so I think they deserve a bit of slack when it comes to a lot of the errors that inevitably crop up. It's not like Day of the Dead was released just last summer by a major studio -- it's an almost 20-year-old low-budget indie horror film from Pittsburgh!

Now I'm not saying that no one should even mention these errors when they happen. Far from it. If a mistake was made it should be noted and, if possible, avoided in the future. All I am saying is that the fanboy enthusiasm a lot of us carry around needs to be tempered with a dose of realism. I mean, after all, these DVDs are very probably not being transfered by people who can recite, verbatim, every single line of dialogue from Day of the Dead. That doesn't mean they don't care and it doesn't make them bunglers and fools for missing some things.

This is, from all reports, as good as the movie has ever appeared outside of a theater in 1985. For that I am grateful.

P.S. Here's another good review: DVD Maniacs review

 

[Randy Korstick]

Kenneth
Don't get me wrong I don't think or expect all these movies should be 100% perfect. I have a huge collection of European and old American Horror films and many of them have far from perfect audio or picture but in many cases both of these are the best that particular film has ever looked and I'm grateful for that so I am not trying to be hard on companies like Anchor Bay at all. Many of these releases still have grain and scratches and I'm fine with that I do not expect perfection from these films but what we are talking about with Suspiria and Day of the Dead is completely different. With Suspiria they chose to remix the audio into 5.1 and drastically altered the mix which was not necessary and even if they still wanted to use this mix it would have been fine if they also included the original mix but they did not. In the case of Day of the Dead they are using some incorrect audio re-dubs that could have and should have been caught and corrected in the QC process. Its as if those responsible for Day of the Dead had never seen it before. Both of these mistakes were mistakes they created and have nothing to do with the shape or condition of the film. Both of these mistakes were avoidable and should not have happened which is all people are saying here.

 

[Kenneth English]

Randy,

I respect your viewpoint, though I do have to say that I still disagree with you on the Day of the Dead audio problem. I just don't buy that this was something anyone who'd seen the movie previously would have caught. I've seen it any number of times but I doubt I could tell you whether a word here or a phrase there was altered unless it was really blatant and obvious (which doesn't seem to be the case here, based on the reviews).

As for Suspiria: I can see where you're coming from on the remix (though I personally prefer the audio on Anchor Bay's DVD to any other version I've seen) as this was a decision to actively alter a part of the film that was, for all intents and purposes, fine to begin with.

It may just boil down to the fact that you're much more of a hardcore fan than I am. That's cool.

Not to derail this thread, but what's included in this new [BRAIN DAMAGE] special edition that wasn't on the previous disc?

Per Synapse DVD's website:

Now available on this DVD in a pristine new 2003 16:9 1080p/24fps High Definition Digital Master, with a newly remixed Dolby Digital 5.1 track, BRAIN DAMAGE will jump off your screen and rock your speakers like never before. This version of BRAIN DAMAGE contains all the gore sequences deleted from the U.S. theatrical release, including the infamous “brain pulling” sequence!

NOTE: THIS LIMITED EDITION DVD RELEASE WILL BE PUT ON PERMANENT MORATORIUM ON DECEMBER 31, 2003 AND WILL NEVER BE AVAILABLE AGAIN!

THIS SPECIAL EDITION DVD CONTAINS:

• New! High Definition 1080P/24fps Transfer (1.85:1
• New! Dolby Digital 5.1 Remix for Home Theater Environments
• New! Liner Notes
• New! Animated Menu Screens and Special Packaging
• Isolated Music Score
• Director’s Audio Commentary
• Theatrical Trailer and MORE!

Hmm. "Permanent moratorium December 31st and will never be available again"? I smell a cheap marketing ploy. Sounds like Disney. :rolleyes

 

[Randy Korstick]

Kenneth
I think we are both hardcore fans to even have this debate . And the funny thing is I'm not even a big fan of Day of the Dead. Its just that these types of mistakes really get under my skin in my favorite genre. I still do think these re-dubs should have been caught because the reviews mention the voices sound different so I think it will be pretty obvious to many but I guess I'll deal wih it.
You are right the next few months are heaven for horror fans. Enjoy your disks.

 

[Damin J Toell]

Hmm. "Permanent moratorium December 31st and will never be available again"? I smell a cheap marketing ploy. Sounds like Disney.

You smell incorrectly. Syanpse is losing their license to the film at the end of the year. It's not a "cheap marketing ploy," but the end of their license. Is the eye-roll really necessary?

DJ

 

[Anthony Thorne]

I'm disappointed in the audio changes on the DAY OF THE DEAD release too, and I don't think I'll be buying it. If Anchor Bay offered two nearly identical, non-anamorphic DVD's of DAY with no extras, and one had the audio changes whilst the other didn't, I'd pick the one that had the original audio intact every time. The inclusion of a cleaned-up transfer, a (now fairly moot) audio remix and a boatload of extras in this new edition don't really change that for me. ("This new release of DAY is fantastic... except for some goofy audio changes done for censorship that weren't present on the prior DVD of the movie"). There's been a number of posts on different boards describing the changes as distracting, and whatever the chance was of me initially not noticing the changes myself, I'm likely to notice them now. I originally would have bought this release for sure, but I'm soured on it for the moment and will spend my money on some of next month's other horror discs.

Regarding Kenneth's final comment just above about Synapse's upcoming BRAIN DAMAGE moratorium, Don May Jr. has noted online that Synapse brought the rights to BRAIN DAMAGE only for a specific period of time (it's been a number of years since the old release) and that period expires at the end of 2003. Given that current disc transfers and authoring are superior to what they were some years ago, Synapse evidently wanted to do a better job on BRAIN DAMAGE (and, obviously, sell some new copies of the film) while they still could. The new transfer is meant to be a noticeable improvement. Disney own the rights to all their movies, and can re-release them whenever they choose. Synapse pay a licensing fee for all their titles and won't be offering every single title in perpetuity for the life of the DVD format. BRAIN DAMAGE may well be available again after December 31st 2003 - it just won't be available from Synapse, and it won't feature May's new 16x9 transfer or the commentary track and extras featured on Synapse's two editions of the movie. That in mind, do you really think another distributor will be rushing to bring out another DVD of BRAIN DAMAGE in the near future now that Synapse have provided two different editions of it to the film's current fan base?

 

[Travis_W]

Once the disc comes out we need to e-mail Anchor Bay. Basing our frustration on early reviews may not do the trick. We can't just sit here and complain. If Anchor Bay at least even addresses the problem and gives us a reasonable explanation I'll be happy.

Look at the bright side, not every curse was taken out...but it still feels like Anchor Bay almost wanted to slap a PARENTAL ADVISORY label on the disc .

 

[JeffMc]

A couple of dubbed over words isn't the end of the world, but it's defintely enough to make it far from the "definitive" version of the film. These companies spend all this time and energy on bells and whistles and extras and whatnot, but they can't even get the movie itself right. Stop with the remixing and tinkering already. Just give us the damn movie with it's original soundtrack intact! How hard is that?? Anchor Bay - you had the correct soundtrack on your first DVD - what's the problem here??? It would be nice if Michael Felsher addressed this issue publicly even if the company doesn't end up correcting the problem. And this argument that "it's an old movie and it looks better than it did in 1985" is bull****. The soundtrack has been changed - the screenwriter's dialog "changed". So what if it's only four or five words and some gunshots muffled here and there - that's enough. And although I don't know the film "by heart" as many ravenous fans may know it, I'm sure I would notice these dub-overs as I do whenever I watch movies modified for network TV airings. And the two supposedly "good" reviews linked above both NOTICED this FLAW. What magnitude this flaw means to each individual is irrelevant - what it basically comes down to is that this is NOT the original theatrical UNCUT version of DAY OF THE DEAD. It's that simple.

This title has now moved from near the top of my very long "to buy" list all the way down to the very BOTTOM of it. Maybe I'll pick it up some day for the extras.... or maybe by that time Anchor Bay will have released a corrected "super deluxe" 20th Anniversary Edition of it ... or maybe I'll just wait for Anchor Bay's license to run out so another company can pick it up and do it right (Blue Underground?). This film WILL come out again. I can wait for it to be done correctly. There are a LOT of other titles that are being done right to buy in the meantime.

 

[DanielM]

I was so looking forward to replacing my full screen laserdisc....now Im not so sure.....

 

[Brian Kidd]

Damn. I sold my old disc as I thought that the new set would have everything that the old disc had. Now not only do I have an incorrect soundtrack, but the behind-the-scenes stuff from the first release is AWOL as well.

I'll still get it, as I really want to have the new stuff, but color me disappointed.

 

[James Lambert]

Count me in on the "disappointed, but I'm still going to buy it" camp. Having watched it a fair few times I'm sure that it'll bother me a little, but I can't possibly imagine a few seconds of altered dialogue stopping me from enjoying the film as a whole. If it was intestines that were being left out I'd get upset.

I am often surprised however about the level of abuse Anchor Bay often receive. I agree that they have made errors, but they are often dwarfed by other elements (be it supplements or visuals). In many cases I'm amazed just to have the film released on DVD at all. You can't deny the range of films they have put out, and there overall A/V quality.

 

[Jonny R]

Let's speak with our wallets, don't buy it. Then AB will have to fix it.

 

[Edward Schatz]

Any word from Anchor Bay on this matter? Michael Felsher say anything? I e-mailed them about 2 weeks ago and have not heard anything.

 

[Rich Romero]

Jesus people, chill out. This is coming from the biggest Romero fan of all. Have we gotten this snobby and picky as to throw huge fits over something that isn't a big deal?
Can anyone remember watching their beat up VHS that looked like ass over and over and not even caring as to the audio or video quality? I'll find something more significant to complain about in the meantime.

 

[Edward Schatz]

It sets a bad precedent. There's no reason for these errors. If we let this one go, or let the bad framing go on BTTF, or other errors DVD production companies, studios, etc. will just get lazy and cheap and their products will reflect it.

 

[TerryW]

The fact that Citizen Kane is available in "pristine form" is precisely the point. If that dvd had a major flaw or even a minor one it would be huge news. Imagine if the line, "rosebud," was dubbed in as something else.

For years horror films were ignored except for major titles like F13 and then they were censored. Then along came Elite Entertainment, The Roan Group, Anchor Bay, Synapse, Media Blasters and Blue Underground. Finally bringing respect to the genre. But what's the point if the films are incomplete, still slightly censored, recut, appear in the wrong form or have dialogue and/or sound fx replaced?

 

[Matt Stone]

I'll still wait until I see it for myself to complain so ardently. I understand that it's an error and no error is good (especially with the reletively spotty track record of AB)...but I haven't seen the film forever due to the crummy previous release, and I'm buying it anyway.

 

[Damin J Toell]

Imagine if the line, "rosebud," was dubbed in as something else.

Of course, the lines in question in Day of the Dead are not essential plot elements such as that...

DJ

 

[Anthony Thorne]

DAY OF THE DEAD isn't CITIZEN KANE, but I'd still like to have it in the original version. Shrug your shoulders if you want, but I'm personally disappointed in the glitch.