Video Home Invasion: Arrow Video Romero and the American Slasher

Arrow Video does not limit their considerable energies to only Italian masters.  They seek out the blood wherever it may be found.  Including my home turf, the good old USA.  In choosing an American master to champion, Arrow Video did the wise thing and picked George A. Romero, father the the zombie film, himself.  In the USA we've had dozens upon dozens of releases of Romero's Dead series, but they'd not been treated as well by the UK. 

The USA got Anchor Bay's Dawn of the Dead Ultimate Edition years back, this included all three common versions of the zombie masterpiece on DVD.  Arrow Video decided it was time that the UK, and the world, got a competing release.  Arrow Video's Dawn of the Dead Blu-ray set features the theatrical cut (Romero's preferred version) in HD, as well as the extended "Director's Cut" version, and the Argento European cut of the film both on their own DVDs in the set.  While Anchor Bay has released the theatrical version on Blu-ray since their Ultimate Edition was released, we poor saps had to keep both sets if we wanted to have all three versions of our favorite film!  No more!  Arrow Video has now released a comprehensive edition of this film that, as of this moment, is the best in the world.  In addition to all three cuts (theatrical on Blu-ray, Argento and Extended cuts on DVD), their Blu-ray includes both the Document of the Dead documentary made on-set by Roy Frumkes of Street Trash fame and The Dead Will Walk documentary made for the Anchor Bay special edition.  It also includes 2 audio commentaries on the theatrical cut, one with George and Chris Romero, and Tom Savini, and the second with producer Richard Rubinstein.  While we're piling on the extras, we can't forget the road movie/fan documentary Fan of the Dead trading the filming locations of all three of Romero's original Dead trilogy films.  Oh, and then there is the Scream Greats: Tom Savini episode exploring the career of army photographer/maniac makeup artist, Tom Savini.  All of that before I even mention the 4 full color art panels, 16 page booklet, and 2 sided fold-out poster.  This edition blows away Anchor Bay's Blu-ray edition, gathering almost every single worthwhile extra feature available in English into one truly Ultimate Edition.  I can safely get rid of my Anchor Bay discs now.

Day of the Dead gets no less a deluxe edition, despite its perceived position as the weakest of the original trilogy.  Again, this release is somewhat in competition with Anchor Bay's release, but, apart from some strange audio adjustments, Arrow Video's release again tops Anchor Bay's somewhat perfunctory re-packaging of one of their minor cash cows.  Both releases feature the Many Days of the Dead documentary chronicling the making of Romero's underrated zombie nightmare masterpiece, however, Arrow Video created a 51 minute featurette with star Joe Pilato where he talks about acting in the film.  Quite an achievement in itself.  If you add to that the Travelogue '09 Tour, Romero "Zombography", photo album and souvenir albums of the dead, the trailers for Night and Dawn and the TV spots for Day of the Dead, along with an audio commentary from the effects guys, Nicotero and Berger, et al, you'd be looking at a pretty impressive package.  All of that is spread out over one Blu-ray and one DVD.  However, like the rest of Arrow Video's releases, this one also gets 4 art panels, a two sided fold-out poster, and another fantastic booklet.  However, Arrow Video went the extra mile and commissioned a 24-page comic called Day of the Dead: Desertion, that follows the "Bub" character, one of the most endearing and human characters from the film despite being undead, on a new adventure.  This is undoubtedly the most carefully and lovingly created total package for this film in the world.  Again, I have no qualms ditching my US discs for this one.  When Arrow Video picks a movie to pamper, it gets amazing treatment, and their Blu-ray set of Day of the Dead is proof that they can create packages with the best of them.

Another Romero gem that gets less than its fair share of exposure is Martin.  Romero's pseudo-vampire melodrama thriller has a spotty history on American DVD, and even spottier on UK DVD until now.  Arrow Video have gone the extra mile to create the most comprehensive version of Martin we've seen yet.  Not only do they present the film in anamorphic widescreen, but also in a 4x3 version that better preserves Romero's original vision.  The anamorphic version crops in a lot of weird places, but the fullscreen version appears much more appropriately framed.  In addition to the well known edit of the film, Arrow Video also provides a little seen Italian version that was drastically recut and rescored by Argento favorites, Goblin.  The cut is VERY different, but the real star of the Italian version is Goblin's score.  This cut also has an Italian language dub with subtitles recreated to follow the Italian dialogue, rather than the original English.  Arrow Video also adds their trademark original and vintage cover art choices, along with a great booklet, 2-sided fold out poster, and poster cards.  As far as video extras go, they add a German TV documentary and a 9 minute making-of featurette to the usual trailers and TV spots.  Arrow Video's treatment of Martin is nothing if not reverential, and more than we could ever have hoped for from this little seen piece of Romero's early oeuvre.

In their quest to revive the Video Nasties from their slumber, Arrow Video have also picked up a couple of classic American slasher films, one of which, Silent Night, Deadly Night, nearly found a place on that infamous list.  The distributors were apparently certain that it wouldn't pass the BBFC and they refused to submit it for classification; and essentially the film banned itself until Arrow Video got it passed uncut early in 2010.  The other film is Godfather of Gore, Herschel Gordon Lewis' comeback film, Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat.    While these films don't get quite the lavish treatment that the Romero's do, they are still some of the best editions available.  The extra features pretty neatly match up with their American counterparts, but Arrow Video shows where their strengths are in these editions without those advantages.  As usual, both films get double sided artwork, along with great booklets.  My personal favorite is SNDN's booklet featuring "Silent Night, Sexy Night: The Slice and Times of Linnea Quigley", a n interview with 80's Scream Queen supreme, Linnea Quigley, can't beat that!

That does it for this entry in the Arrow Video story.  The next chapter will show how Arrow is beginning to branch out from its gory beginnings and wraps its slimy tentacles around all of exploitationdom around the world.  Stay tuned to see how Arrow Video starts its trek to the Orient, as well as exploring other subgenres of exploitation in Europe and the USA!

Don't forget to enter the Bava/Fulci contest, it ends Thursday!  Also, look for another giveaway following that one, I think you should start seeing a pattern by now...