The definitive release of Dan
O'Bannon's horror/comedy classic hits store shelves next Tuesday –
and it belongs in every cult film fan's collection. Here's Chris
Jordan's in-depth review of the disc.
 |
| CLICK TO BUY |
Dan O'Bannon's The Return of the
Living Dead is a zombie film
like no other. It strikes a near-perfect balance of chills and humor,
it pioneers the postmodern genre satire more than a decade before
Scream, and it
features a kick-ass early-80s punk soundtrack with a line-up that
nearly rivals The Decline of Western Civilization.
It is no exaggeration to say that it is one of the best, most
original horror films of its decade, outdoing most of its competitors
while at the same time hilariously sending them up. Yet despite its
rightfully iconic status and passionate cult following, The
Return of the Living Dead has
always struggled with home video distribution – and has usually
lost that struggle. The problem is that soundtrack: a very authentic
time-capsule of the early years of punk rock that includes The
Cramps, T.S.O.L., The Damned, 45 Grave, and half a dozen others. As
with so much 1980s and '90s media that based its sound design around
licensed songs, ROTLD
soon found itself in a complicated and expensive tangle of music
rights that first kept it out of print for many years, and then saw
it released on DVD and blu-ray with large chunks of its soundtrack
swapped out for cheaper replacements. A significant percentage of the
film's fandom (myself included) consider MGM's music-swapped disc
releases totally unacceptable, and would insist that the original
HBO/Thorn-EMI VHS release was the only way to experience the film, as
it was the only version that had its soundtrack intact.
But
now that is all changing: Scream Factory, those patron saints of
genre cinema, have at last rescued The Return of the Living
Dead from the apathy of MGM, and
have given us exactly the sort of collector's edition that its fans
have been longing for. Not only is it the first American release
since the 1980s to include the original music and sound design (well,
almost – there is just one small change that proved legally
unavoidable, but it's no dealbreaker), it is also a jaw-droppingly
spectacular package in every other way. Boasting a stunning new
remaster which blows the MGM blu-ray out of the water, and an insane
quantity of special features including FOUR commentaries, eight
featurettes and interviews, a full-length documentary, and a
workprint rough-cut of the film, this is more than we ever would have
dared to hope for. Not only is this effortlessly the best horror
release of 2016 so far, it may be one of the best special editions of
any horror film ever. It hits store shelves on Tuesday July 19th,
and if you're a horror fan you'll want to be there to get your copy
as soon as possible. Scream Factory is easily giving Batman
V. Superman a run for its money
as next week's most exciting blu-ray release.
Let's
break down how the disc performs:
The
Video:
 |
| "This is where we locked up that jerk who wouldn't pay for the music rights for the MGM discs." |
As
they do whenever possible, Scream Factory has created a brand-new 2K
remaster of the original interpositive, rather than relying on MGM's
pretty soft and lazy existing HD master. Even if you've already
watched the film on the MGM blu-ray, you've never seen it look this
clean and spectacular. The detail is incredibly sharp in a way the
old disc wasn't: you can clearly see every bead of sweat on the
actors' faces, and you can finally read the bottom row of the eye
chart on the wall in Frank's office, every bit of graffiti in the
graveyard, and all the text on the punks' patches. The film grain
comes across very clearly and naturally, faithfully capturing the
experience of watching the film on 35mm. The EC Comics-inspired color
palette looks more awesome than ever. Since my previous preferred
viewing method for The Return of the Living Dead
was the HBO/Thorn-EMI VHS tape (to preserve the intended audio
experience), seeing it this way was a revelation, and I found myself
catching small details for the first time.
Speaking
of small details, it's nice to see how well the film's makeup and
creature effects hold up: while HD can be very unkind to low-budget
special effects, the work done on most of these zombies is still
seriously impressive. Tar-Man and the half-corpse still stand up as
two of cinema's creepiest-looking ghouls; a testament to how much
O'Bannon's team achieved on a fairly modest budget. There certainly
are low-budget flaws visible here and there throughout the
production, but nothing made distracting by the HD facelift. There is
no visible damage or wear to the picture, though; in fact, I did not
notice any flaws at all in Scream Factory's presentation. It's one of best transfers I've seen from them. I do not
think that a modern remaster of a 30-year-old film could look any
more perfect than this, and I thank Scream Factory for the love that
they've shown this movie in their restoration.
The
Audio:
Scream
Factory has said ever since the disc was announced that their goal
was to make The
Return of the Living Dead
sound exactly as it did in theaters, in all the ways that the various
MGM DVDs and blu-rays did not. With one small exception, I would say
they were entirely successful. While the MGM discs were notorious for
their meddling with the soundtrack, there were also a few other
bizarre changes, like the re-dubbing of the Tar-Man zombie's voice by
a different actor. Scream Factory has corrected all those changes,
going back to the 35mm release's audio track to make sure that the
sound design – including Tar-Man's voice – is exactly as it
should be. They offer a couple different options for the audio on the
disc: the default is a 100%-true-to-the-theatrical-release mono 2.0
mix, though there's also a new 5.1 surround mix as well. Since I do
not have a surround sound set-up I cannot judge the 5.1 mix, but I am
perfectly happy to stick with the mono 2.0, as that is how the
original sound design was engineered. Their remaster of the audio
sounds great: the dialogue is very clean (except where the
modest-budgeted nature of the shoot caused certain lines to be a
little muffled – though no one can fix that now), the sound effects
really pop, the music sounds excellent, and it is all mixed together
brilliantly. Yes, the mono format has its inherent limitations, but
that's just how it was recorded and mixed to begin with; Scream
Factory has cleaned it up wonderfully, and it sounds as great as it
possibly can while still keeping the authenticity they wanted.
 |
| The Breakfast Club: Class of 1984 |
The
Special Features:
 |
| "I need to be tied up so I don't spend all my money on Scream Factory pre-orders!" |
Get
ready, because this is where the disc really makes a powerful
impression. The amount of special features included on this two-disc
set is absolutely staggering; I cannot think of another release that
has both this volume and this quality in its delving behind the
scenes. Scream Factory has ported over all the extras from the
various MGM discs as well as including the individually-released
full-length documentary, More
Brains! A Return to the Living Dead,
and they have also produced a whole bunch of new features exclusive
to this release. All in all there are four audio commentaries, six
featurettes in addition to the full-length doc, sit-down interviews
with Dan O'Bannon and John Russo, and the first ever legal release of
the often-bootlegged Return
of the Living Dead
workprint rough-cut. I don't think any other features could possibly
be created to go any further in-depth. While the ported-over features
and the More
Brains! documentary
will be nothing new to serious fans of the film, let's take a closer
look at the new features that Scream Factory produced for this
edition.
To
start out with, there are two new audio commentaries: one features
actors Thom Matthews (Freddy) and John Philbin (Chuck) as well as
special effects artist Tony Gardner, and the other features film
historians and “professional fans” Gary Smart (director of More
Brains!
and co-author of The
Complete History of The Return of the Living Dead)
and Chris Griffiths (director of the Fright
Night documentary
You're So Cool,
Brewster,
and the Hellraiser
documentary Leviathan).
The actor and effects artist commentary is great: fast-paced and fun,
with just the right combination of really interesting information
conveyed in a very entertaining way. All three of the people involved
worked on ROTLD
as one of their first projects at the beginning of their careers, and
it clearly had a big impact on their lives, allowing them to remember
the production vividly and fondly. The three wax philosophical about
the creativity, spontaneity, and in-the-moment energy that low-budget
filmmaking inspires, and share fun stories about the comraderie they
had as a cast, and which scenes were improvised due to this friendly
acting environment. We find out which cast members were actual punks
and which ones were preppy kids who had to learn to act hardcore
(it's pretty much the opposite of what you'd expect), and we get the
inside scoop about the volatile clashes between Dan O'Bannon and
actor Clu Gulager. The other new commentary by the historians and
fans is interesting, and provides some cool trivia (like how this was
almost a Tobe Hooper film, until it conflicted with the production of
Lifeforce),
but being that the two guys didn't actually work on the film, I wound
up enjoying the on-the-set stories from Matthews, Philbin, and
Gardner quite a bit more. Add in the two older tracks – one with
Dan O'Bannon, and one with production designer William Stout and
actors Don Calfa, Linnea Quigley, Brian Peck, Allan Trautman, and
Beverly Randolph – and you have all the commentaries that any fan
could want, and probably more than most have time to listen to.
 |
| "Mooooore Extras!" |
Then
there's the new featurettes: principally, two half-hour documentaries
about the visual effects and the soundtrack. Both are quite in-depth,
and extremely interesting. The featurette about the visual effects
shows a very different side of the production than the
fondly-remembered actor's commentary: it tells the tale of a very
contentious and difficult shoot which saw grand visions clash with
limited budgets, and saw one lead effects artist get fired halfway
through after a series of clashes with Dan O'Bannon. Put together,
these two perspectives on the production paint a very complex
portrait of the late O'Bannon as an eccentric and sometimes very
abrasive visionary who fostered improvisation and spontaneity among
his actors, but was often unbending when it came to his very specific
ideas for the film's aesthetic. The featurette about the movie's
music is fascinating in a whole different way, chronicling the saga
of how O'Bannon, in his desire to give the film a genuinely punk rock
attitude, approached L.A.-based Enigma Records to channel the soul of
the city's punk scene into the soundtrack. It deals with the large
overlap between horror fandom and punk rock, and connects the film's
cultural context to what was happening in independent music at that
time. Fans of The
Decline of Western Civilization
will really enjoy seeing how it revisits that same scene, a couple
years later. Members of pretty much every band on the soundtrack are
interviewed, as well as other L.A. punks like The Circle Jerks' Greg
Hetson, who champions both The
Return of the Living Dead
and Repo Man
as having brought underground punk into the mainstream. Besides those
two longer featurettes, there is also a brief tour of the locations
used in the film. Not to mention the wealth of older featurettes and
interviews from the MGM discs, and the two-hour More
Brains! documentary.
The
other very cool new inclusion in the Scream Factory set is the early
workprint cut of the film, presented here legally for the first time.
Bootlegs of the workprint have circulated for years, in various
stages of poor quality as tapes were copied over and over, and
eventually digitized through decidedly non-professional means. The
version presented here is, relatively speaking, probably the
best-quality that I've seen... but it's still a very smudgy VHS copy
that was probably a couple duplications away from 1st-generation (it
even starts with a text screen explaining that it looks pretty rough,
but they dug around and it's the best they could find). Even in such
quality, though, it is pretty interesting for fans to see: it's a bit
over twenty minutes longer than the theatrical cut, and all of that
time consists of small additions of dialogue here and there. None of
the added dialogue changes the overall film, but it's nice for fans
to see little extra bits of the characters we all know so well, as
occasionally they do cast a scene in a slightly different light. It's
important to note that this isn't some lost director's cut: O'Bannon
had final-cut control over the film, so all the extra material here
is stuff that he elected to remove, either for pacing or narrative
reasons. As such, it gives some insights into his creative process as
an editor, as we get to see how he streamlined the film into a
finished product. Also interesting is that the workprint has an
alternate epilogue; an entirely different voiceover from the one in
the theatrical cut, which leaves things on a decidedly different
note. It probably isn't something you'll watch more than once, but
it's definitely worth a look, and I'm glad they included it. If
nothing else, it's a great cherry on top of this almost ridiculously
large mountain of special features. Scream Factory really pulled out
all the stops on this one.
Overall,
this collector's edition package of The
Return of the Living Dead
is absolutely stunning. I highly doubt that the transfer could look
or sound any more excellent than it does; Scream Factory's
restoration is as close to flawless as anyone could possibly get. In
terms of special features, the release is equally stunning. With over
twelve hours of extras in every form imaginable, they have left no
stone unturned in giving us every detail they can about the
production of this film. The features succeed resoundingly both
in terms of information and entertainment, and fans will really enjoy the experience. I think it's safe to say
that this is the most
thorough, extensive release for a single film that Scream Factory has
ever done, aside from maybe the three-disc limited edition of
Nightbreed.
Even more than that, this has got to be one of the most thorough and
extensive collector's editions ever given to any genre film; it
outranks most Criterion discs in terms of how much is crammed in. I would be shocked if anything can surpass this as the best horror blu-ray of 2016. It's a must-own.
Share this review, horror freak!
Total
Score:
-
Christopher S. Jordan