I’m hardly a horror scholar, so when it comes to the variety of versions of George Romero‘s 1978 zombie classic “Dawn Of The Dead,” I’m not an authority. But here’s what you need to know: Dario Argento was a fan of “Night Of The Living Dead,” and wanted to get involved with Romero’s followup, and made a deal to score international distribution rights for his help in landing financing. The caveat was that Argento could cut the film any way he wanted to abroad, which he did. And as the film entered various territories, it was further snipped and edited for censorship reasons. But now, the movie as Argento envisioned it, is being restored and headed to the prestigious Venice Film Festival.
Nicolas Winding Refn will join Argento in presenting the new, 4K restoration of “Dawn of the Dead – European Cut” (aka “Zombi“) on the Lido. The film will run 115 minutes (about ten minutes shorter than Romero’s cut), but one of the key differences is that Argento’s version features much more of Italian prog-rock band Goblin‘s score. And Argento explained in the statement the long, long journey “Dawn Of The Dead” has taken.
“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. I didn’t know what to do so I said: ‘Ok, let’s screen the world premiere in Turin, a city I love because that is where I filmed ‘Deep Red‘; if it doesn’t do well there, we can do away with it.’ It was a Friday afternoon and I was rather terrified as I went to the theatre; but I remember seeing a lot of people as I walked over from the hotel and thought: so it can’t be going that bad!.. and in fact when I got there it was packed; I went in and thanked everyone for coming,” Argento said. “The film was being shown after a lengthy series of mishaps in Italy: the censors made me cut out a lot of scenes, and as a result I withdrew it. 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.”
For his part, Refn calls the picture “the most extreme and fascinating tale of American consumerism ever brought to the screen.”
To get the full breakdown of the differences in the Argento and Romero versions, check out this post over at Movie-Censorship. And if you won’t be in Venice to see this newly restored horror classic, not to worry — this latest version will be released on DVD, Blu-ray, and Blu-ray 4K this fall in a boxed set with the extended and theatrical cuts of the movie.