Diary Of The Dead: First Impressions

I’d planned to do a bit of a write-up on this, or as much as my phone will allow, after seeing it. But now I HAVE seen it, I can’t bring myself to say too much.

First: I want to see it again. Partly because I missed the celebrity voice cameos, but mostly because it’s good. Very good. Romero is back on form, having made not only a great zombie movie, but a great horror movie full stop.

I’ll write more later. If I don’t, bug me in the comments until I do. I need to do Diary justice, and I can’t do that on this phone’s keyboard. Well, not if I want to retain my sanity.

Planet Terror next. And I’m about to crack the first Red Bull of the evening. Might have some chocolate too. How indulgent.

Off To See Romero

This is something I never thought I’d get to do! I managed to get tickets to Frightfest’s All Nighter, to be held at the ICA in London in early November.

It all kicks off at 9pm with a showing of Diary of the Dead, introduced by the only and only George Romero himself. One of my personal heroes!

After the showing, George will be doing a Q&A. And after that there are showings of:

• Planet Terror - half of the ill-fated Grindhouse project, and something I’m looking forward to seeing on the big screen.
• Savage Streets - which will probably be crap, so I might nod off during this one.
• Frontiers  - looking forward to this one.
• Inside - sounds intriguing, but I think this starts at about 5am, so God knows what state I’ll be in.

Should be a great night’s viewing! Assuming I can stay awake. I’ve booked the day off work, and will attempt to not get up until 1pm or so. That way I should just about make it.

I’m going to try to LiveBlog from the screenings too.

Quick Bite: The Zombie Diaries trailer

Found via Dread Central; this looks surprisingly effective.

Quick Bite: 28 Weeks Trailer

It’s online and can be found here.

Let me know what you think. A good idea? Hungry for more? Or should they have just left the original to stand alone?

Best Case Scenario?

Richard Brunton over on Filmstalker has been blogging from Dead By Dawn over the last few days (lucky swine).

One of the many fantastic events he's been able to attend over the past few days is a talk by the producers of Worst Case Scenario, a brilliant looking nazi-zombie movie that seems to have been in development for an age. So far, all we've seen are two excellent teaser trailers, which Richard got to see on the big screen - those of us not lucky enough to be there will have to make do with watching it on our computers. 

I'm glad this project is still alive - if nothing else it should prove to be an incredible looking film, but I really hope that someone with some financial clout gets behind this. Get some decent actors and a good effects budget and this could be something very special.

Day of the Dead: Arrow UK release

I picked up the new R2 release of Day of the Dead (published by Arrow Films) because I'd hoped that the audio problems present in the otherwise excellent Anchor Bay R1 release (mentioned here) would be fixed. Sadly, they're not; the audio track used is identical to the Anchor Bay release. To prove this, and to make sure that anyone who's thinking of getting this version is informed, I've put together a few sound clips. There are six sections of audio that are incorrect. The first three listed are what I consider to be the most significant, and by that I mean I didn't notice the other three until tonight's little exercise.

Warning: If you're currently blissfully unaware of the errors, or are over the moon with your copy and can overlook these flaws, DO NOT LISTEN TO THESE FILES. Trust me, the errors are so glaringly shite that if you listen to them here you won't be able to miss them next time you watch the film. Also, for some reason the timecodes for the new Arrow release are different. The original Arrow and Anchor Bay releases are in sync, the new one isn't. I've not had a change to determine why yet - I suspect it's PAL speed-up, but why does the original Arrow release sync up?

John (timed at 00:09:35 and 00:09:10) - Original Arrow | New Arrow | Anchor Bay

Sarah (timed at 01:11:22 and 01:08:27) - Original Arrow | New Arrow | Anchor Bay

Steel (timed at 01:20:30 and 01:17:15) - Original Arrow | New Arrow | Anchor Bay

Note - the following three clips are only presented in good and bad format. I've checked all three editions and the AB and new Arrow releases are still the same, I just stopped taking clips at this point.

Crazy (timed at ) - Good | Bad

Gunshot (timed at ) - Good | Bad

Spic (timed at ) - Good | Bad

I really, really love this film, and I can't ignore these problems with existing versions. Maybe I'm just incredibly anal - this exercise certainly proves that - but I wish someone would fix these errors and release a genuinely excellent edition of Day.