United Film
Dario Argento to Introduce 4k Restoration of Dawn of the Dead at Venice Film Festival
The European cut of the George Romero classic, Dawn of the Dead, will be receiving a 4k makeover. The restoration will appear at this year’s Venice Film Festival (Aug 31-Sept 10).
The newly enhanced 70’s horror will get a midnight premiere on Sept 2nd, according to Screen Daily. Nicholas Winding Refn (Drive, Neon Demon) will introduce the restoration along with horror legend Dario Argento. Argento worked closely with Romero. Entitled Zombi in Italy, Argento played a pivotal role editing and scoring the film for the European market. Argento’s brother, Claudio, acted as producer.
Dawn of the Dead is the second installation in the multi-part Living Dead series, beginning with Romero’s iconic 1968 film, Night of the Living Dead. In it, a group of people must survive an onslaught of the undead while trapped inside a shopping mall.
The European Zombi, sported a shorter running time at 115 minutes. In addition, Argento looked to band Goblin to provide music for the film. Goblin most famously contributed to Argento’s Suspiria.
Argento talked about the difficulties he faced bringing Zombi to theaters:
I am particularly pleased that Zombi is being re-released after so many years. Titanus, the distributor at the time, considered it a very strange film with too much action: the music was too extreme, they thought it would not be well received and I was a little scared myself by this terrible prophecy.
Also, the Italian director discussed the obstacles he faced while editing:
They were asking me to cut far too much; I remember even thinking that the editing would no longer be comprehensible, so I made a series of small cuts, fixed it up a little, and was able to swing an emergency procedure (usually the censors take up to six months to review a film again). When the film was finally released it was forbidden to minors under the age of eighteen which, in my mind, was fairly serious, because we had conceived it for an audience of young people… I have a great memory of Zombi because it was so important for my career and for George’s as well.
No word yet on whether the 4k restoration will make its way stateside. Still, we’re willing to bet fans will clamor for a Bluray release of this chapter in the Romero library!
By Mike Sallustio
