Night of the Living Dead (1990) - Out of Print

[esquire]

Originally Posted by BluPat

Charging $30+ for a barebones movie with a sub-par transfer just because they can, is absurd in this day and age. Yes, barebones. The trailer and commentary are on the DVD with other extras.

Originally Posted by jjdpw50

It would have been much cheaper released by anyone else, that's the problem. If it was only $10, there would be less crying imo. The MGM horror titles are 7.88 right now, TT is a ripoff. I don't care if it's a "collectable" or not.

Some people just never will get it. How much do you think TT is paying the studio to release the movie? How much do you think it costs TT to press and manufacture the titles? How much do you think TT and SAE have in overhead that they need to recover per release? How much do they need in profit in order to make any of this worth their while? Add all that up and then divide that by 3,000 and I am sure the $29.95 retail price is at or near that number. TT is limited in the amount they can make per title since they can only produce 3,000 units. It's not like they can produce unlimited copies and sell them at a reduced rate to try to recover their investment and make some (minimal) profit on a title for $7.99. There's a big difference of total revenue that grosses just under $90,000 and that which only grosses $24,000.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by esquire

Some people just never will get it. How much do you think TT is paying the studio to release the movie? How much do you think it costs TT to press and manufacture the titles? How much do you think TT and SAE have in overhead that they need to recover per release? How much do they need in profit in order to make any of this worth their while? Add all that up and then divide that by 3,000 and I am sure the $29.95 retail price is at or near that number. TT is limited in the amount they can make per title since they can only produce 3,000 units. It's not like they can produce unlimited copies and sell them at a reduced rate to try to recover their investment and make some (minimal) profit on a title for $7.99. There's a big difference of total revenue that grosses just under $90,000 and that which only grosses $24,000.

~$44,925 in total costs since Nick Redman mentioned they have to sell roughly 1,500 copies to break even.

[HDMe]

Originally Posted by dmarvin

After reading of this, I posted mine for a BIN price of $66.60 on ebay and it was purchased within a couple hours by someone in New York. I really don't know why you would want a refund on a sold out title unless it's broken or unsaleable? No harm, no foul for me. I almost doubled my investment. I will without a doubt bite on Christine when it goes up for pre-order.

Devil's advocate... what happens if the person who bought it from you watches it and complains about it and wants a refund from you? Would you refund it? If not, would you be willing to put up with the eBay hassle that he could kick-off or the potential chargeback if he paid via PayPal?

That's the risk you run if you sell it on eBay.

Originally Posted by rdodolak

According to this site, TT provided them a screener of NOTLD90.

http://wtf-film.com/site/2012/10/02/...living-dead-90

First time for everything. That's the first title I've seen that said Twilight Time provided them a screener copy. It does beg the question, though... IF they provided a free screener copy, where did it come from? Did they make more than 3000? Or was it one of those 3000?

[HDMe]

Originally Posted by esquire

Some people just never will get it. How much do you think TT is paying the studio to release the movie? How much do you think it costs TT to press and manufacture the titles? How much do you think TT and SAE have in overhead that they need to recover per release? How much do they need in profit in order to make any of this worth their while? Add all that up and then divide that by 3,000 and I am sure the $29.95 retail price is at or near that number. TT is limited in the amount they can make per title since they can only produce 3,000 units. It's not like they can produce unlimited copies and sell them at a reduced rate to try to recover their investment and make some (minimal) profit on a title for $7.99. There's a big difference of total revenue that grosses just under $90,000 and that which only grosses $24,000.

Keep in mind that it is Twilight Time that set the 3000 copy limit. They only request the rights for 3000 copies... I'm sure they could pay more for the rights to make more copies IF they wanted to do so... but they don't.

So any argument that brings the "they are limited to making only 3000 copies" into the discussion has to recognize that Sony didn't place that restriction... Twilight Time only wanted to make that many in the first place.

Twilight Time could have negotiated rights for 5000 copies if they wanted to do so.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by HDMe

First time for everything. That's the first title I've seen that said Twilight Time provided them a screener copy. It does beg the question, though... IF they provided a free screener copy, where did it come from? Did they make more than 3000? Or was it one of those 3000?

Don't know if they are being truthful or not but there is no reason, at this point, to think they aren't. I have seen other sites state that TT doesn't provide them screeners and that site seems to get an awful lot of screeners from TT.

Cover Girl is reviewed from screener graciously provided by Twilight Time. Per the usual for the label, the release is a limited run of 3000, and is available for purchase exclusively through ScreenArchives.com.

... reviewed from a screener provided by Twilight Time
Journey to the Center of the Earth is out on limited edition Blu-ray from Twilight Time, and is available exclusively through ScreenArchives.com.

... reviewed from a screener provided by Twilight Time
Bite the Bullet is out on limited edition Blu-ray from Twilight Time, and is available exclusively through ScreenArchives.com and their Amazon storefront.

As such, here’s a quick peak at the Twilight Time’s two latest Blu-ray releases - Désirée, from 20th Century Fox in 1954, and Bell, Book and Candle, from Columbia in 1958 – to tide you over until your humble host can sweat out the full reviews. As always, these are available exclusively through ScreenArchives.com and their Amazon storefront, and are reviewed from screeners graciously provided by Twilight Time

... reviewed from a screener provided by Twilight Time
Demetrius and the Gladiators is available on Blu-ray from Twilight Time in a limited edition of 3000, and is offered exclusively through Screen Archives Entertainment and their Amazon storefront.

[whitesheik]

Originally Posted by shamus

Why do people keep saying birds don't chirp at dusk? Mine do all the time. Isn't it also reasonable to believe that if the dead were rising, that the birds might be a little jittery?

Also with the montage showing the moon rising, it's also reasonable to believe its transitioning from dusk to dark and not day to dark (unless it's actually showing the sun go down, which I didn't see... but could of missed it). It would also make sense for this to not be the middle of the day, because when we do see the moon montage, what the hell were they doing for the last 8 hours?

Barbara's brother also repeatedly states that this was a 200mile drive, which very well could mean that they arrived later in the day.

I thought mine looked great and i liked how the darkness really set the mood, afterall, its night of the living dead, not day of the... although some of the blue could of been toned down (didn't we complain that there wasn't enough blue in Halloween?)

That being said, if the director did in fact say he liked that this was shot at daytime, then it shouldn't have been changed.

Not having much recollection of how it originally looked, Im happy with my copy, but I do feel for the real fans who remember it the other way. Unless a director comes up with a very good reason on why he changed something, just give us the original please...

It's amusing to me, and not in a good way, that no one, not one person, responded to the quoted post above, which is filled with good points. I have now seen the Blu-ray. The caveat about my comments that follow is that this is the first time I've seen this film (and the last). The quality of this Blu-ray transfer cannot be faulted in any way, shape or form. You can argue until the cows come home (they went to Ecuador when they saw how long this thread was) about the color timing, but you cannot argue about the quality of the transfer - it looks great in the context of what it is.

I've seen all these caps - of the DVD - of the Blu - you can all give all the reasons in the world how they're accurate and we're all at fault somehow because we're not viewing them correctly. You know what? If caps can't be posted on a discussion board so that everyone can view them simply and easily in a way that reflects what is actually on the disc, then they shouldn't be posted at all. I don't want to have to go hook my computer up to my TV and do this and do that, but then again, I am not obsessive/compulsive. The caps on this board do not in any way reflect what I watched. Enough people have said this now, so I'm not a voice in the wilderness. You can see everything you need to see. No, it is not bright like the DVD.

My guess is the following: I'd bet that the that the look of this film lies somewhere in the middle of this Blu-ray and the VHS - i.e. that the theatrical prints were brighter but not as bright as the DVD. The DP of the film probably decided he finally had the tools to enable him to get the look that was his intention and he did it. It probably is not as severe-seeming between the prints and the Blu as it is from the VHS/DVD to the Blu. But everything in the post I quoted above is accurate, IMO. Anyone who doesn't think birds chirp at dusk and in the evening is either deaf or lives somewhere where there are no birds. There are birds right outside my window who are chirping NOW at seven thirty-six in the evening. There are birds who chirp in the middle of the night - I know this because they occasionally wake me up. I've been talking about these chirping birds for years elsewhere. Also, the film opens in light, but, for me, it is clearly later afternoon, not noon. The shadows are long as they would be in the later afternoon. So, whether one likes it or not, when the dusk look appears, which is gradual, it makes perfect sense. As to the montage, I agree with the poster above - the key moment in that montage is the moon rising - either I, like the poster above, missed the shot of the sun, or it simply isn't really there. The latter part of the film in the morning looks rather like the first part of the film in what I think is the later afternoon.

So, yes it's probably slightly different than the theatrical timing but also probably not nearly as drastic as the DVD. The rabid fans of the film have been watching the DVD transfer (made off a lo-con print which is always many stops brighter than any theatrical print would be) hundreds of times (and I won't even comment on that) and that's what they're used to. So, for them, this won't work, even though, IMO, it makes perfect sense for the story being told. But just to reiterate: There is not one shot in this transfer that is too dark. The transfer has wonderful detail. That is my two centimes.

[HyperRealist]

Originally Posted by whitesheik

It's amusing to me, and not in a good way, that no one, not one person, responded to the quoted post above, which is filled with good points. I have now seen the Blu-ray. The caveat about my comments that follow is that this is the first time I've seen this film (and the last). The quality of this Blu-ray transfer cannot be faulted in any way, shape or form. You can argue until the cows come home (they went to Ecuador when they saw how long this thread was) about the color timing, but you cannot argue about the quality of the transfer - it looks great in the context of what it is.

I've seen all these caps - of the DVD - of the Blu - you can all give all the reasons in the world how they're accurate and we're all at fault somehow because we're not viewing them correctly. You know what? If caps can't be posted on a discussion board so that everyone can view them simply and easily in a way that reflects what is actually on the disc, then they shouldn't be posted at all. I don't want to have to go hook my computer up to my TV and do this and do that, but then again, I am not obsessive/compulsive. The caps on this board do not in any way reflect what I watched. Enough people have said this now, so I'm not a voice in the wilderness. You can see everything you need to see. No, it is not bright like the DVD.

My guess is the following: I'd bet that the that the look of this film lies somewhere in the middle of this Blu-ray and the VHS - i.e. that the theatrical prints were brighter but not as bright as the DVD. The DP of the film probably decided he finally had the tools to enable him to get the look that was his intention and he did it. It probably is not as severe-seeming between the prints and the Blu as it is from the VHS/DVD to the Blu. But everything in the post I quoted above is accurate, IMO. Anyone who doesn't think birds chirp at dusk and in the evening is either deaf or lives somewhere where there are no birds. There are birds right outside my window who are chirping NOW at seven thirty-six in the evening. There are birds who chirp in the middle of the night - I know this because they occasionally wake me up. I've been talking about these chirping birds for years elsewhere. Also, the film opens in light, but, for me, it is clearly later afternoon, not noon. The shadows are long as they would be in the later afternoon. So, whether one likes it or not, when the dusk look appears, which is gradual, it makes perfect sense. As to the montage, I agree with the poster above - the key moment in that montage is the moon rising - either I, like the poster above, missed the shot of the sun, or it simply isn't really there. The latter part of the film in the morning looks rather like the first part of the film in what I think is the later afternoon.

So, yes it's probably slightly different than the theatrical timing but also probably not nearly as drastic as the DVD. The rabid fans of the film have been watching the DVD transfer (made off a lo-con print which is always many stops brighter than any theatrical print would be) hundreds of times (and I won't even comment on that) and that's what they're used to. So, for them, this won't work, even though, IMO, it makes perfect sense for the story being told. But just to reiterate: There is not one shot in this transfer that is too dark. The transfer has wonderful detail. That is my two centimes.

I knew you'd like it. Now I'm just waiting to hear from ROclockCK.

[Clark Kent]

Originally Posted by iamnoone

Just checking in after a couple of days and this discussion just never ends! So many pages to catch up on!

I do have to make a statement to those on here that are trying to twist history and reality by implying that the film's opening was always supposed to be at dusk and anyone who saw it in theaters just don't remember it right. That's insane. I saw the film's opening matinee show at Graumann's Chinese Theater on Hollywood Blvd. I even ran into Tony Todd in the restroom before the show started, and he said he just came to watch the audience reaction. There wasn't much of an audience, unfortunately. And this is the FACT: The film's beginning was in BROAD daylight. No faulty memory, no faulty print. DAYLIGHT. I have always been a huge horror film fan and first saw the 1968 NOTLD at the drive-in at the age of 10 in 1971. It became my favorite film for years, and before the VHS days, I owned a full-length 8mm w/sound print of the entire film. So by the time the 1990 version came out, I was waiting to see this remake immediately, just as I did THE BLOB remake (empty theater both times I saw it), FRIGHT NIGHT, and every other horror film throughout the 80's and beyond. So when it opens in stark bright daylight, that was a big change from the original and I reacted to it. In the end, I didn't really care for the remake - it was just so-so - and I am not one who has watched it a hundred times on VHS, cable, or DVD so that has not altered my memories. In fact, I think I only have scanned through the film one other time when I bought the earlier DVD, and it looked just like it did in the theater. So stop trying to do revisionism on history. The film's first 20 minutes took place in broad daylight. These 20-30 year old 'experts' on here trying to say otherwise have no clue about anything.

That all said, I looked at this new Blu and I actually PREFER it to the original 1990 version! I think they pushed the blue tint a bit too much, though, but overall, it does make the film moodier. That daylight to moonlight transition scene makes no sense now, but I do think the film is creepier now, even though it doesn't represent how it was originally presented. And if you fiddle with your TV settings, you can lower the blue tint and get the colors back, so you can almost watch it both ways on this Blu (even though it won't be quite as bright as the theatrical version was). I see both sides to this argument - ones who hate the new rendition, and those who defend it. But the thing that is not open for debate is how it originally played in theaters. It was BRIGHT DAYLIGHT, end of story.

You're correct, though I don't think anyone is seriously arguing that the Blu-ray's timing is faithful to the original theatrical presentation. At some point the DP and technicians at Sony decided the new timing was more appropriate and attempted to improve the movie's look, possibly correcting things they might have wanted to fix back in 1990 but didn't have the time or money.

I largely agree with the thrust of your critique. The colorist went a little overboard with the tint, but NOTLD90 is now a moodier experience more in line with recent zombie movies.

Originally Posted by gpn

I forget where I read it, but apparently one of the big reasons Sony has relegated so much of their back-catalog genre titles to companies like Twilight Time and the others was due to Night of the Creeps. Sony went above and beyond to put out a full-featured blu-ray release with a quality encode and lots of extras, and it sold very poorly, so they saw not enough of a market to be worthwhile to them.

SPHE made a number of baffling choices in the catalog properties they were releasing on Blu-ray, before the implosion. It looked to me like they decided to first release what they believed were the best new transfers, instead of picking movies with better sales potential. Night Of The Creeps was an oddball choice that was never going to sell in big numbers, no matter how many extras you package it with. I got the impression someone was making decisions for genres they had no personal experience in, choosing to blindly release films with poor salability.

[Kentai]

Originally Posted by whitesheik

You know what? If caps can't be posted on a discussion board so that everyone can view them simply and easily in a way that reflects what is actually on the disc, then they shouldn't be posted at all.

Like it or not, the absolute majority of the caps floating around are what's on the disc. The fact that you don't have your PC monitor calibrated isn't the problem of the screenshot itself.

While, yes, viewing a screenshot in a web browser with white or gray borders around it WILL change the way you interpret shadow detail and color. That's not the computer's fault - that's the way the human brain works, averaging out different colors via optical illusions and such. In short, if your monitor isn't out of whack and you're looking at a screenshot in fullscreen (assuming the person making said caps didn't f*** up!), well, you just have to accept that the disc isn't as pretty as you thought it was.

Heck, I've seen caps that looked worse in isolation than they did in the context of the film. Doesn't mean that the caps weren't accurate, though. It's all just a matter of perception.

Anyone who doesn't think birds chirp at dusk and in the evening is either deaf or lives somewhere where there are no birds. There are birds right outside my window who are chirping NOW at seven thirty-six in the evening. There are birds who chirp in the middle of the night - I know this because they occasionally wake me up...

True enough, but surely you realize that chirping birds as ambient effects are there for a reason. When Barbara escapes the house towards the end of the film, the air is full of chirping crickets - you know, audio cues that TELL THE AUDIENCE "this is night". Sound mixing is generally broad-stroke kind of stuff, and the fact that the scenes that we can all agree are supposed to take place at night lack the sound of twittering feathered friends is telling.

Besides, Tony Todd now drives that truck "at dusk", during an outbreak of dangerous ghouls, with the lights off. Again, when they drive up to the gas pump later in the film, AT NIGHT, the headlights are on - clearly they weren't supposed to be broken.

Why do you have such an issue acknowledging that this "Day for Night" crap was something that was never experimented with until 2010? If the film makers like it, whatever, that's their prerogative. But to insist that every prior version was "wrong" doesn't make much sense, particularly when the director himself has talked at length about the fact that they shot the opening act during a bright sunny day. If you LIKE the change, that's fine, but why can't you use a little common sense and acknowledge that it is a change none the less?

But just to reiterate: There is not one shot in this transfer that is too dark. The transfer has wonderful detail. That is my two centimes.

There's no signifigant black crush, no. Overly cool color timing, with weak contrast and unconventional skin tones? We're going to have to agree to disagree there, I'm afraid.

[ROclockCK]

Originally Posted by HyperRealist

I knew you'd like it. Now I'm just waiting to hear from ROclockCK.

I'm afraid you're in for a disappointment HyperRealist. I was totally smashed and actually nodded off when I originally saw NOTLD90 theatrically, and never saw it at all on home video...not VHS...not LD...not even DVD. Except for my basic familiarity with the storyline from the '68 original, NOTLD90 might as well be a new movie for me...or it would have been prior to this thread.

So in that context, do you really expect I'll have anything useful to add at this point? Heck, I feel like I've already watched the damn thing 16 times since last Thursday via all the forensic analysis and Zapruder-class frame caps here.

Truth be, when this finally does show up out here in high country, I'll probably watch Enemy Mine first.

[Kriztoffer Swank]

Just to throw in my two cents since this is a hot topic...

I was wary of the disc when I heard all the hubbub and saw the screenshots, but it's clear to me now that none of those screens were truly representative of the disc. On a properly-calibrated TV (like mine), the visuals are not as dark as what was presented about a week ago. Colors are definitely muted, however, and there is like a ten-minute period toward the beginning where it is very blue, but it didn't bother me. Of course, I'd never seen the film before, so I have nothing to compare it to. Watched the HD trailer on the disc and that's probably more how it "should" look, but I'm perfectly satisfied with the final product. In a perfect world, though, we'd eventually get a disc which is more representative of how the film would have looked in theaters, sort of like how The French Connection got redone. Maybe in three years or whenever we'll see that...

Here's a good review of the disc with properly-captured screenshots:

http://wtf-film.com/site/2012/10/02/...iving-dead-90/

[oildude]

Others have begun to point out what I noticed when I watched the blu-ray the other night. Despite the scads of posts here stating it happens, many from the most vocal haters, there is no "sun going down" scene. No setting sun, no big red orb dropping behind the trees, nada, as some seem to have convinced themselves actually happens.

What is shown, is a scene of the last glow of fading daylight in the western sky above the treeline, with the foreground in twilight shadows....as it should be. The clouds are lit underneath. The sun has already set twenty or more minutes prior (and is not shown in the film). The shot only lasts a few seconds, followed by a montage of the night sky and the rising moon.

And hell yes, birds do chirp at dawn, during the day, at twilight, and at night. Happens all the time, and in some places, all year long. All this makes me wonder if some people here even go outside after sunset. Hike, camp, fish, hunt? Or are fantatic horror fans just glued to their computers and TVs all night long.......not that there is anything wrong with that.

[Yankees0222]

Originally Posted by Kriztoffer Swank

Just to throw in my two cents since this is a hot topic...

I was wary of the disc when I heard all the hubbub and saw the screenshots, but it's clear to me now that none of those screens were truly representative of the disc. On a properly-calibrated TV (like mine), the visuals are not as dark as what was presented about a week ago. Colors are definitely muted, however, and there is like a ten-minute period toward the beginning where it is very blue, but it didn't bother me. Of course, I'd never seen the film before, so I have nothing to compare it to. Watched the HD trailer on the disc and that's probably more how it "should" look, but I'm perfectly satisfied with the final product. In a perfect world, though, we'd eventually get a disc which is more representative of how the film would have looked in theaters, sort of like how The French Connection got redone. Maybe in three years or whenever we'll see that...

Here's a good review of the disc with properly-captured screenshots:

http://wtf-film.com/site/2012/10/02/...iving-dead-90/

The screencaps in that review are a much better representation of what it will look like on many television screens than the other screencaps found in this thread If people are wondering what the transfer looks like, I'd definitely recommend those screenshots

[AnxietyDilemma]

I happen to live in Pennsylvania, and while there are occasional bird chirps at dusk, they do NOT chirp at night where I live, only crickets (both tree and field varieties) and katydids. If I hear a bird at night, it startles me because it is that unusual of an occurrence.

You can hear the occasional field cricket throughout the day, but by dusk they are in a full chorus and the katydids start chiming in. There are some bird chirps, but the crickets overwhelm them by dusk. This starts early in the spring.

[HyperRealist]

I live within 100 miles of where it was filmed. The birds stop chirping at night and don't start again until about 1/2 before sunrise.

[Tybo28]

There is ground fog during the opening cemetery scene, purposely generated by fog machines. It's morning. Unless it took her 9 hours to run to the farmhouse, it is not evening.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by Yankees0222

The screencaps in that review are a much better representation of what it will look like on many television screens than the other screencaps found in this thread If people are wondering what the transfer looks like, I'd definitely recommend those screenshots

Agree that they look very much like the screen caps found here:

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=3269

[DarknessBDJM]

I have the broadcast hd version that has the original timing and all, so it's nice to have both versions, even if one is unofficial.

[whitesheik]

Originally Posted by #Darren

Does that mean the DP only OK'd it after the fact?

No, he worded his sentence wrong, which, if you read what precedes it you'll understand. What he's saying is that the VHS and DVD transfers were unsupervised - he clearly states this one was.

[whitesheik]

Originally Posted by oildude

Others have begun to point out what I noticed when I watched the blu-ray the other night. Despite the scads of posts here stating it happens, many from the most vocal haters, there is no "sun going down" scene. No setting sun, no big red orb dropping behind the trees, nada, as some seem to have convinced themselves actually happens.

What is shown, is a scene of the last glow of fading daylight in the western sky above the treeline, with the foreground in twilight shadows....as it should be. The clouds are lit underneath. The sun has already set twenty or more minutes prior (and is not shown in the film). The shot only lasts a few seconds, followed by a montage of the night sky and the rising moon.

And hell yes, birds do chirp at dawn, during the day, at twilight, and at night. Happens all the time, and in some places, all year long. All this makes me wonder if some people here even go outside after sunset. Hike, camp, fish, hunt? Or are fantatic horror fans just glued to their computers and TVs all night long.......not that there is anything wrong with that.

And yet we have post after post about this blazing setting sun shot. But you're not going to convince anyone of anything. It is interesting how others are trying to convince that the screen caps here are perfectly representative of what's on the Blu-ray and that it's OUR fault that our monitors aren't calibrated - they say this, of course, without having an inkling of knowledge whether a person's monitor is calibrated. It doesn't matter that fifty people have said it's not representative because they know best and only their monitors are calibrated, to which I, of course, say hogwash.