- Time
- Post link
Hello. I’ve just registered here to enquire about a different project, but I realized I could announce my own while I’m here.
Wampyr is the alternative Italian edit and dub of George A. Romero’s 1977 film Martin. This version was released in Italy and other European markets in 1979 and was originally edited by Piero Bozza, frequent editing assistant on Dario Argento’s films of this period. Album-released music from Goblin replaces Donald Rubinstein’s score from Martin. The structure is also quite different from Romero’s original Martin edit, with story points rearranged or omitted, or otherwise altered with the help of alternate dialogue in the Italian dub.
This version of the movie has only been available in a few home video releases in rather sad quality. If not in old VHS quality, then still a bad print cropped to 16:9 (open matte 4:3 was Romero’s preferred framing and it looks so much better) and sped up to ~29fps PAL speed.
Using the brilliant new restoration of Martin from Second Sight Film’s UHD and blu-ray release, I have cut together a restoration that is very faithful to the original releases of Wampyr. Now in 1080p 4:3 framing and at proper playback speed.
The Italian dub audio track was taken from Arrow’s DVD release of Martin that included Wampyr on a bonus disc. I have also created a “remastered” audio track that is built on better quality releases of Goblin’s music and cleaned up other elements. This was my first foray into this kind of audio editing, but I took my time with it and I’m personally very happy with the results. Even if it’s nothing too fancy - just a cleaner track that makes light use of stereo separation.
Available in 1080p and 576p options. Both include the remastered audio and original Arrow DVD audio track and selectable English subtitles.
Also (god this description is longer than I intended), if you haven’t seen the original version of Martin, you should totes watch that original version first. I like the Wampyr version very much or I wouldn’t have made this, but I also don’t want to mislead - I think George Romero’s original edit is the superior version.
Screenshots are from the 576p version except for the first title shot, since I already had these made and easily on hand.
