Night of the Living Dead: The Ghoulish Amalgamation!

[johnboy3434]

NOTE: While I'm not "making" a film, I figured this belonged here more than it did in the Classic Horror Movies forum. This fan-edit and the (free) distribution of it are perfectly legal, as Romero and Russo's classic is in the public domain.

Night of the Living Dead '68. You know it. I know it. My grandpa's dog knows it. People who've never seen a zombie movie in their life have heard of it. Some hail it like the Second Coming, as though we should all get on our knees and bow before its sheer badassness.

...

I didn't think it was that great. Don't get me wrong, as 1960s horror films go, it was up there in the top ten. Unfortunately, the only other title in that category with any redeeming value is Psycho (now that's a horror masterpiece). But, if only in an attempt to make up for this striking revelation of nonconformity, I would like to say that Dawn of the Dead '78 absolutely blew my socks off. That was a damn good movie.

NotLD68 (to distinguish it from the cheesier but ultimately more enjoyable NotLD90) has one quality that distinguishes it from other modern horror classics: it's in the public domain. This means that anyone with the ability to burn a disc could throw their own DVDs out on the open market and the Copyright Nazis couldn't do a thing about it. As such, there have been countless VHS, LD, and DVD releases over the entire lifespan of home video as we know it. Horror movies (by comparison with other genres) usually get low-profile DVD releases on which sites like Amazon and others don't pick up all the info. Some of these versions have alternate, wedged in, and even colorized footage.

Now, I'm the kind of person who's always liked deleted and/or extra scenes, no matter how crappy they are. As you can imagine, I worship the fan-edit genre. It's fun to mess around with a classic. This is why I now have no problem with GL playing around the old Star Wars movies. Since he's provided us with a DVD-format choice between the old and new (however crappy the old's picture and sound is in comparison), I harbor no ill-will, anymore. But anyway, my favorite thing to do is take every frame of film that could possibly be put together and stick it into the main feature. The aim of my little project here is to do exactly that with NotLD68. I'm going to take the different versions of the classic (yes, even the much-maligned 30th Anniversary Edition; all footage must go!), and cram as much of it into one film as the narrative will allow. Also, since black and white actually bores a lot of people (seriously, I'm not joking), I'll be using colored and/or tinted footage whenever possible.

Right now, I'll bet you're thinking: Wait, you're going to take the many versions of a beloved piece of horror cinema and splice them together? You'll be mixing monochrome, tinted, and color footage as well as pieces of at least two different soundtracks? It'll look like an idiot pasted it together!

That's the beauty of it: an idiot is pasting it together! This is a personal project of mine, more for me than anyone else. I'm just quirky like that. If anybody wants to see it, though, I'd be glad to torrent it. These will be my sources:

http://www.amazon.com/Night-Living-C...5900158&sr=1-5
http://www.amazon.com/Night-Living-D...900158&sr=1-15
http://www.amazon.com/Benefit-for-th...901421&sr=1-26

That's the original cut (both monochrome and colorized), the 30th Anniversary Edition *boo! hiss!*, and Benefit for the Living Dead (aka the Survivor's Cut). Are there any other (non-parody) cuts of the film available on DVD? I haven't been able to find any, but I'm not an expert on the film, either. I'll have it done fairly soon after I get the DVDs in the mail.