Hopefully it refers to one of those machines where the film is scanned frame by frame and the most obvious scratches and pieces of dirt are 'erased' like they do with silent or very old films when the print isn't in the best condition.

Thats why i wrote what i did! And it is of course a joke!

To be fair the screens in the review causing all the fuss did seems to have a natural looking layer of grain.
To be honest I'd prefer if a human just sat down and watched the film, noted down time indexes of any obvious scratches, print damage etc. the fixed the frames manually later.

MTI is pretty standard. Criterion also uses it I think along with a host of others.

Home - MTI Film - Powerful Solutions for Post

The German edition only has this as an extra.

If this is available only as an extra in the German edition then you can buy the Arrow version because it will have this as an extra.

The Arrow version on Blu Ray will now be an essential purchase for me.

The German color sequence is an extra on both the Anchor Bay and Grindhouse discs with a choice of the English or German audio tracks.

Yeah I know.

my mistake. I see you were saying that the German DVD does not have the color sequence in the film, only as an extra. I took what you said at first to mean that the German DVD was the only release with the color sequence as an extra.

That's also how I read it.

I speak only in the German because they were talking about that version.

This is good to hear, looking forward to receiving my copy. I was about to cancel my pre-order but it's staying in place now. I'll be watching this bad boy day and date of delivery!

This is one of my favourite Fulci's, I certainly hope it gets corrected so we can have the intro to the film in sepia.

I wonder how this happened in the first place?

Some interesting things I've found:

From: ...E tu vivrai nel terrore! L'aldilÃ* - Wikipedia

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._(prologo).JPG

L'aldila (1981) @ EOFFTV

It was shot in colour.

Out of context, sir and I didn't write it, it's from a link/quote.

Is this still going to make the intended street date with the extra work that needs to be done?

Yeah, I realised that after I'd posted. Sorry.

I should have said the link you quoted from is wrong. Or incorrectly translated. In fact looking at the wiki page it says...

Il prologo del film fu girato in bianco e nero, virato seppia

Girato means turned, I think. So rather than saying filmed in B&W it should be turned B&W...

The text from wikipedia is badly translated.

The tex tells us" Il prologo del film fu girato in bianco e nero, virato seppia."

That means "The prologue was shot in black and white, turned into sepia" and not "The prologue of the film was shot in black and white, sepia".

You cant´t shot a scene in black/white and sepia at the same time with the same camera.


We all know that we can´t always trust wikipedia because it´s a site made from all the feed from it´s users. Some of the things on wikipedia are not always right.

I don´t know if this particular scene was shot black and whit or in color, but was surely intended as degraded sepia.

I'd say that because this scene exists in full colour as an extra on various DVDs it's a pretty safe bet it was indeed filmed in colour. In fact seeing as the scene existed in colour in German releases years and years ago (before digital trickery could even begin to think about colourising B&W footage so it looked like it was actually filmed in colour) I'd say it was definately shot in colour.

And you could be right in that.

I'm with you on that one, there's no doubt about it. But the fact of the matter is that it was intentionally changed to sepia, not Black and White.

100% agree.

- Originally shot in colour
- Colour "adjusted" (if that is the correct word) to sepiatone to suit the atmospheric requirements of Fulci's vision

Is there anybody who can point to any release of this film anywhere in the world on any format since its original release with the pre title sequence in black and white? I'm talking tape, film, laser or DVD.

The Arrow review test disc... :nod:

I´d buy one of those test discs just for the sake of them being unique.

glad to see Arrow are investigating this :)

You could always watch the pre title sequence with the colour turned down on the official Blu Ray instead..... :lol:

Unlike those misprinted 20p, I doubt these are going to be selling for thousands...

If arrow has already had the discs with the b&w part pressed do youvthibk they would add it in the release as a added bonus? it would be a shame to waste these discs

Anyone? Please? :mmph:

Yes, there actually was a VHS tape from Vipco in the 90's. There are like 4 different colour versions of that sequence, a few examples...

- Full Colour: German theatrical and 80's to mid-90's VHS releases
- Sepia: Dutch VHS release, US-DVDs (Grindhouse/AB) and releases based on their Master
- Yellow: Italian and Scandinavian DVD releases (both rather "dirty yellow" looking picture, not really the wanted "golden" look)
- B&W: the mentioned Vipco VHS release

So, *if* that test-disc had the pre title sequence in B&W, it would not be the first time a UK company tried that. ;)

I would of course also prefer the original "golden" look (but a nicer, cleaner Yellow than on the Italian and AWE DVDs).

Also what somehow ruined the previous DVD releases in most (if not all) other countries, was the cropped picture. The sides often didn't contain the complete picture information, and especially a *lot* was cropped from the bottom of the picture. I have my hopes for a much more complete picture and framing on the Arrow release.

A few European DVDs I checked also were missing the very first seconds from the beginning, talking about the "HOTEL" sign first shot. It's no big deal, but complete is better.

Any chance that Arrow & Co. come up with some previously totally-unknown and/or Deleted Scenes, that someone has found at his houses attic? :cool:

I hope the issue with the film's overall brightness level will be sorted now.

It's just as essential to the viewing experience as the yellowed intro, given that it affects approx. 90% of the running time...

You know I'll pick up this release anyhoo :rockon:

I haven't heard anything but, if and when I do, I'll post it in one of the threads in this section. Please don't think that anyone is withholding information because, at the moment, there isn't any information to withhold!

The German Astro Filmworks DVD had the full color OP scene within the film proper. It was also taken from a much brighter print than the Grindhouse DVD:

Caps-A-Holic Comparison

I don't think either of them are quite perfect; the Astro print looks oversaturated while the Grindhouse print looks too dark. Check #6 for an example where the R1 DVD is basically a black hole!

The more time I spend looking at the Arrow transfer in general, the less convinced I am that it's "wrong". It's certainly brighter than I expected, and looks a little washed out compared to the Grindhouse transfer, but I wouldn't be surprised if the negative is relatively similar.

I look forward to seeing what changes are made between now and release day. :)

That's the thing, we don't know what it's actually supposed to look like. Even the caps of the Arrow and Grindhouse versions over at dvdbeaver are completely different. I look at the Grindhouse version and think a scene looks better, then look at another and think the Arrow version looks better.

To put context in the history of the American releases, the difference between the Grindhouse Releasing and the Anchor Bay is that the Grindhouse version has more compression artifacts due to the new extra that´s included in the package. Comparing the two, you´ll notice less definition on the side of the Grindhouse version because of the mentioned compression. The print used is the same on both companies because it was a joint venture on the part of Anchor Bay, Grindhouse Releasing and Quentin Tarantino´s Rolling Thunder when they were transferring and remastering the movie for the theatrical release and the Anchor Bay edition.


Grindhouse said this when the remastering was done for their theatrical run, the same print they used for the Anchor Bay DVD and their Grindhouse Releasing DVD:
"GRINDHOUSE RELEASING HAS SPARED NO EXPENSE IN DIGITALLY REMASTERING THE BEYOND AND CANNIBAL FEROX FROM ORIGINAL NEGATIVE AND SOUND ELEMENTS NEWLY RESTORED BY TECHNICOLOR LAB IN ROME. TO ENSURE UTMOST PICTURE QUALITY, THE COLOR TIMING OF THE BEYOND WAS PERSONALLY SUPERVISED BY SERGIO SALVATI, THE ORIGINAL DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY OF THIS TERROR CLASSIC."

As for the lab used, it could be many in Italy. But now we have confirmation that the color timing of the Anchor Bay/Grindhouse Releasing is supposed to be "correct" because it was supervised by the DP.

I guess the only person who could really tell us which release is the most like the director's vision would be Lucio Fulci but, sadly, that isn't going to happen.

Imo the DE DVD is a little too bright.
I prefer the Grindhouse DVD over the DE DVD.

Maybe, but one thing for sure, the intro shouldn't be in B&W ;)

Maybe Fulci intended it to be a darker version of The Wizard of Oz instead?

That starts in black and white too... though in a lot of prints I have seen, its sepiatone :lol:

No, I totally agree, and no one will ever convince me otherwise - this was never intended to start in black and white.

Wow, I know it's just a compression issue but I'm surprised how much better the Anchor Bay DVD looks than the Grindhouse. That definitely seems like the one to beat!