2019-03-01, 10:57 AM
(This post was last modified: 2021-09-20, 06:21 AM by LucasGodzilla.
Edit Reason: VHS-Based Prservation From VHS Source Made
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(2020-06-12, 06:32 AM)LucasGodzilla Wrote: I would like to announce that I have a 16 GB MKV made! If you would like to download it, please shoot me a PM!
Special thanks to Alleycat for providing me VHS reference material and to SpaceBlackKnight for being able to digitally upmix the audio to a 4-Track mix (though I hope to get Sporv to do it someday in the future with his hardware for an analog variation of the mix).
Just as a heads up, this is a revised version of an old thread I made on this topic. Originally I wanted to just restore this cut with footage from the best-looking blu-ray release of the movie with the hopes of having it sync up with a VHS source (which as of 6/11/20 has been made available to download). HOWEVER, as mentioned in a more recent post, I'm in touch with a collector who owns a print of this cut and can theoretically have it scanned.
Now admittedly I would have to ask more on the print condition itself but I still think this is a fantastic opportunity for fans of the movie since it'd not only be an opportunity to see a unique version of the movie in 4K HD, but it's also an opportunity to see how the photochemical color grading looked back in the day (supposing it's unfaded) and it'd very likely end up being a better source of the audio track than any of the home media releases thus far.
So with all that said, if anyone does want to donate towards a 35mm scan of the Seven Doors Of Death Cut, by all means, reply to the thread and I'll jot it down. After all, I don't plan on actually taking the proceeds until nearing the end of the aforementioned $825 goal.
So with all that said, if anyone does want to donate towards a 35mm scan of the Seven Doors Of Death Cut, by all means, reply to the thread and I'll jot it down. After all, I don't plan on actually taking the proceeds until nearing the end of the aforementioned $825 goal.
Now for those of you who are unfamiliar with The Beyond, it is an Italian supernatural zombie horror movie directed by Lucio Fulci in 1981 and is considered to be a cult masterpiece.
Now with that said, there's something I discovered that's quite fascinating to me. In the United States, The Beyond was released two years after its initial theatrical run in a heavily edited cut of the movie retitled as 7 Doors of Death. Now despite it being the only version one could get ahold of back in the days of VHS, it seems to be nonexistent nowadays ever since the uncut Anchor Bay release of it in the late 90s.
What made this cut unique was not only how some of the movie's Fulci-trademarked gore scenes were censored to ensure an R-rating, but the pacing was sped up along with other changes. The movie was also completely rescored, nixing the memorably grand Fabio Frizzi soundtrack with a more traditionally 80s synthesizer soundtrack.
I'm not gonna go into too much detail on the actual editing differences though since there's this video that explains it better.
My hopes right now are that I'll be able to get my hands on a decent rip of this version of the movie and be able to reconstruct this cut of the movie using my lossless rip of the Grindhouse restoration as high-def footage with the ripped audio synced to the edit. Unfortunately though, I can't seem to be able to get my hands on a rip of the 7 Doors cut at this time. As far as I know, the only home media release of this cut were pan-and-scan VHS tapes which is unfortunate since even if I were to purchase a tape online, I wouldn't have any of the right equipment to rip the tape. However, I have heard that there is a widescreen telecine of one of the original theatrical prints floating around the internet according to a YouTube comment on the video I posted above.
Glen Wilcox Wrote:Unearthed a wide transfer of the 7 doors version... I bring it out now and then from a nostalgic fondness for having initially grown up with it, but of course the international cut is FAR superior.
Not on an official release. Someone had a 35mm about 12 years ago and offered it to a friend... To push it because the print was very clean they handed him a five minute telecine that was beautiful. Some dealer in Big reel. i suspect they ran the whole thing because the wide rip turned up on a share site shortly after and it looked same but was all there. i just nabbed it and moved on. Quality is barely a click above VHS looks like it may have been pulled to SVHS or 3/4" of some kind... But it's there and not terrible.
I'm trying to contact him about this transfer but I was hoping if some of y'all would have this floating around since it'd be easier and likely better to use than the pan-and-scan transfer. On top of this, I may even throw in a regrade on top of all this since if it is a telecine of the print, it'd have the original colors–obviously. The original color grade for the movie seems to be somewhat in the air since although Grindhouse does a nice job restoring the movie in HD, they seemed to have altered the colors rather weirdly in some areas, most notably in the opening and some areas in the hospital.
In fact, to be perfectly blunt, I think that VHS tape footage used in the video has probably more accurate colors than either the two releases I've compared above since one is incredibly neutral and the other does wild things with it. The biggest thing one should take note is the blue lighting, which is quite prevalent in the VHS but not to the point of it looking overtly artificial. Of course though, I can't be too sure without the footage to check, but y'all get my drift hopefully.
If someone can send me a rip of this version of the movie or if I find it floating around, I would happily spend a bit of time fiddling around in Da Vinci Resolve in the future to recreate this antiquated cut for nostalgia / oddity seekers.
![[Image: ivwz24G.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/ivwz24G.jpg)
