Blu-ray, DVD Release: Night of the Living Dead (1968)

By
Laurence
– February 16, 2018Find Others: Blu-ray, DVD, Movie, New Release, NewsGet More: , , ,

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Feb. 13, 2018
Price: DVD $18.31, Blu-ray $18.31
Studio: Criterion

Shot outside Pittsburgh on a shoestring budget by a band of filmmakers determined to make their mark, 1968’s Night of the Living Dead, directed by horror master George A. Romero (Day of the Dead), is one of the great stories of independent cinema: a midnight hit turned box-office smash that became one of the most influential films of all time.

A deceptively simple tale of a group of strangers trapped in a farmhouse who find themselves fending off a horde of recently dead, flesh-eating ghouls, Romero’s claustrophobic vision of a late-1960s America literally tearing itself apart rewrote the rules of the horror genre, combined gruesome gore with acute social commentary, and quietly broke ground by casting a black actor (Duane Jones) in its lead role.

Stark, haunting, and more relevant than ever, Night of the Living Dead is back, in a new 4K restoration.

Criterion’s Blu-ray and DVD editions of the modern classic contain the following:

* New 4K digital restoration, supervised by director George A. Romero, coscreenwriter John A. Russo, sound engineer Gary R. Streiner, and producer Russell W. Streiner
* New restoration of the monaural soundtrack, supervised by Romero and Gary R. Streiner, and presented uncompressed on the Blu-ray
* Night of Anubis, a never-before-presented work-print edit of the film
* New program featuring filmmakers Frank Darabont, Guillermo del Toro, and Robert Rodriguez
* Never-before-seen 16 mm dailies reel
* New piece featuring Russo about the commercial and industrial-film production company where key Night of the Living Dead filmmakers got their start
* Two audio commentaries from 1994, featuring Romero, Russo, producer Karl Hardman, actor Judith O’Dea, and more
* Archival interviews with Romero and actors Duane Jones and Judith Ridley
* New programs about the editing, the score, and directing ghouls
* New interviews with Gary R. Streiner and Russel W. Streiner
* Trailer, radio spots, and TV spots
* An essay by critic Stuart Klawans

 

Buy or Rent Night of the Living Dead (1968)

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About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.