Years ago, friend of the show and perpetual Genre Grinder guest host Patrick Ripoll asked me to record a couple of episodes on his podcast commentary series Tracks of the Damned. The two films in question, George A. Romero's Martin (1978) and Lucio Fulci's City of the Living Dead (Italian: Paura nella città dei morti viventi; aka: Gates of Hell, 1980), are stone-cold classics from two of the greatest horror visionaries of all-time, as well as personal favorites.
By coincidence, both movies made their 4K UHD debuts the same day: Tuesday, March 27th, 2023 (the Standard Edition of City of the Living Dead will be released early April). In Martin's case, this disc has been a long time coming. Romero's film hasn't been legally available on US home video since 2004 (!) and was never released in HD in any territory across the world. After a few of years of false starts and extended deadlines, UK company Second Sight – the same studio behind the incredible 4K debut* of Dawn of the Dead (1978) – has finally broken the curse, releasing both 4K UHD and Region B Blu-rays of this seminal masterpiece.
Meanwhile, City of the Living Dead was not hard to find digitally. It was issued and re-issued several times on DVD and Blu-ray over the years. But none of those releases were in full 4K until relatively new US-based studio Cauldron Films – the same people that finally gave us Fulci's poliziottescho classic Contraband (Italian: Luca il Contrabbandiere; aka: The Smuggler and The Naples Connection, 1980) on Blu-ray in 2022 – released their fully remastered 4K UHD collection.
This new availability seems like the perfect time to plug the Tracks of the Damned episodes. While they were recorded years before I was completely comfortable recording podcasts, I'm still proud of what we did and would love to share it with you all.
0:00 - 4:24 – Episode intro (2020)
4:25 - 7:12 – Episode intro (2017)
7:13 - 1:46:35 – Commentary Track
1:46:36 - 2:25:06 – Romero Remake Discussion
2:25:07 - 2:26:11 – Episode outro (2017)
2:26:12 - 2:26:51 – Episode outro (2020)
Buy the Martin Limited Edition 4K UHD from Diabolik DVD.
Buy the Martin Standard Edition 4K UHD from Diabolik DVD.
0:00 - 8:46 –- Intro
8:47 - 1:42:54 – Commentary
1:42:55 - 1:56:49 – Questions
1:56:50 - 1:58:23 – Outro
Pre-order the City of the Living Dead Standard Edition 4K UHD directly from Cauldron Films.
Pre-order the City of the Living Dead Standard Edition 4K UHD from Diabolik DVD.
* I know that, technically, the Italian cut of Dawn of the Dead was released in full 4K by Italian studio Midnight Factory, but the other cuts were not remastered.
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