In 1986, Hal Roach Studios destroyed a classic by colorising Night of the Living Dead. Although the work they did must be commended (turning 96 minutes of black & white footage into color ain't easy), it does nothing to enhance the movie - depending on which version you see, zombies have ridiculously green faces, blood is bright red and the primitive make-up effects lose their little realism. To add insult to injury, the picture quality is appauling - before Ben turns the lights on in the house you'd be hard pressed to see anything. The film is ridiculously dark in places and much of the colour seems wrong. What's worse is that the studio re-coloured the actors & actresses' clothing for some reason - while Helen Coopers dress was originally red and white, Hal Roach decided to turn it blue.

Sound quality also suffers throughout the film, with many dialogue scenes appearing muffled and warped. Even though the original soundtrack was in mono, it was a very effective mix. However, in the colorised version it feels abnormally flat and dull. Even the recent STAX Entertainment DVD release of Night presents us with a pityful transfer, only marginally better than the video print.
We all know that Night of the Living Dead has become a classic, so why tamper with it? Better speak to Mr Russo about that...

NOTLD 30th ANNIVERSARY EDITION

In a bid to salvage what was left of their dire careers, Karl Hardman got together with John Russo and started to plan out a 'Special Edition' of Night due partly to the overhwelming success of the enhanced Star Wars Trilogy. Their basic premise was to shoot new footage that they wanted to film back in 1968, but did not have the money to do so. Hardman said how he expected to shoot this footage and incorporate it "...without damaging the web of the film as it exists".

Well, in 1999 a 30th Anniversary Edition was indeed released. But it was far from special. As a matter of fact, I have never seen a film be turned from a classic to a steaming pile of something warm and brown. I cannot comprehend how disgusting this 'new footage' is. John Russo shot 15 minutes of new scenes and inserted them into irrelevant places in the film to the sound of another travesty - an all-new music score. Not only do these news scenes stick out like a sore thumb, they add absolutely nothing to the film yet take so much away. To accomodate the new footage, Russo deleted 15 minutes from the original cut, abolishing character development and other important scenes. When I have the time, I shall list what these new scenes are but in the meantime, I can think of a million and one better things to do than to write about this heap of dog shit.