The Argento and Romero Cuts of Dawn...

[Todd Tjersland]

I agree. Hell (or Night) or whatever you want to call it, had the most potential to be a classic because of the originality of its zombie plague--originality lost in the mad rush to copy Dawn of the Dead and Zombie... And then there's the National Geographic-like stock footage every time a character looks out the window of his jeep! LOL Ultimately, I think, the originality was not lost on everyone--why else would we still be talking about it so passionately over two decades years later? There's something special about it, and not just the cheese, the rip-offs, the boobies, and the gore. It presents such a bleak and hostile worldview that you can't help but be attracted and repulsed by it at the same time. The parallels between the zombie plague in Hell of the Living Dead and AIDS in real life being a government conspiracy to commit genocide upon an undesirable civilian population are as true today as they were back then.

[SymphonicX]

Well the original company that released Dawn on video in the UK was Intervision way back in 82 or 83 and there were less cuts in it than the 4 Front version (Project 107 arm bite was left untampered among others but still not fully uncut). But as another interesting point, it had the EXACT same Argento truck quote because the 4 Front release was essentially an edited down version of this cut. This is known as simply the UK Theatrical Version. Argento edited for Europe and GAR handled English language - 'cos we kinda fall under the two, it was amalgamated. Also because the Euro version was called 'Zombi', the very first UK edition eliminated every trace of the title 'Dawn Of The Dead' from the opening and ending credits and was retitled 'Zombies'. This is why the 4 Front edition has that appalling yellow and red title at the beginning 'cos the Intervision version had 'Zombies' flash up instead. Confusing I know but we got there in the end. ahhh yeah Intervision - that was it. Interesting how the 4-front/polygram version of Dawn was an Argento cut - one wonders why they used Romero's music and sound FX....ie: the gunshots in the Romero version of Dawn are crap compared to that of Dario's version - but the 4-front version follows everything the same as Romero's US theatrical cut - so it still doesn't make sense to me.

[capncnut]

It's definitely a ramshackle edit, why they decided to merge the versions together I'll never know. And yeah, the Argento gunshots are far superior to GAR's gunshots.

[dmbfanintn]

Don't forget Frans line that changes from version to version. when she is at the top of the staircase: In one version she says "Stephen for gods sake" in the other version she says "We've got to get up to the roof"