From the Indiegogo page:
“Die You Zombie Bastards!” is a movie that was shot between 2001 and 2004 and premiered in 2005 simultaneously in Providence, RI and Berlin, Germany. It screened around the world at festivals like Fantasia, The Lausanne Underground Film Festival, RioFan, SciFi London, The Rhode Island Horror Film Festival, The Backseat Film Festival, The Weekend of Fear and many, many more. DYZB! was also highly praised by Fangoria magazine, Rue Morgue Magazine, Dread Central, bloody disgusting.com and virtually every significant genre website at the time.
DYZB! is a genre-bending mish-mash contains one of the last filmed performances by adult film legend Jamie Gillis, and one of the ONLY on screen performance by rockabilly legend Hasil Adkins. It’s got an amazing soundtrack filled with rock n roll, metal, punk, surf and rockabilly. And the movie has LOTS of boobs.
DYZB! was released to DVD in North America by Image Entertainment and in the United Kingdom by Odeon Entertainment and has gone on to be one of the most ferociously loved and violently hated cult films of the 2000’s.So, what’s the problem? The problem is that the film was (quite beautifully) shot on glorious 16mm film by wildly talented DP and filmmaker Jarred Alterman and was never given a proper transfer. There was no real HD at the time we were filming, and since we knew the film would likely go straight to home video (and didn’t have a ton of dough) we never conformed our negative or had any prints of the film struck. That’s right…we shot this movie on 16mm film and then cut it using one-light transfers of our analog beta-SP dailies.This is not ideal…at all. One light means that for each reel of film, the lab technician got an exposure and color reading off of the first shot the reel, and then just let it fly. So these were really dailies designed to preview your raw footage before finishing….but we never really finished.The movie wound up still looking pretty good at the time, and that’s how it was released. However, it could look so much better. So, for the sake of preserving the negatives I am having ALL 15 HOURS of raw footage digitally scanned on top-notch equipment, and I’m then going to reassemble and re-color grade the movie and make a Blu Ray, and the movie will finally look the way it should before I properly vault the negatives and other materials (which have been sitting in my parents’ attic for over 10 years). This WILL NOT be a new cut of the film, but an HD reassemble of the original version. There is no “director’s cut”, as the director approves of the cut that’s out there.NOW…as of this time, there is no plan to release this Blu Ray commercially. That doesn’t mean that we never will release it, but there is no deal in place, and it’s entirely possible that the small run that I make from this campaign will be the ONLY way to ever get the film in HD and looking the way it should. Also, since I’m having all of the footage scanned, I’ll be seeing out takes that have never been seen by anyone aside from Caleb, Haig and editor Daniel Strange (damn his insidious soul). I’ll compile the best of the deleted scenes, outtakes and bloopers as a second disc. I don’t know how long this will be, because I haven’t seen the footage in a while..but there’s some great stuff in there that you may never have another chance to see again!I plan on making both a 1.85:1 enhanced version for the first time (the film was not shot that way, but I will adjust it to fit 16X9 widescreen HD TV’s) and a version in the original 1.33:1 16mm aspect ratio. Also, I will give the movie a significantly better mix (and if I raise more than what I’m initially looking for, maybe I’ll even get a spiffy pro mix or something special)I’ll be honest…I don’t know how long this is going to take. At least several months, maybe a year. I HOPE to deliver everything before January, 2016, but that’s the date I picked. I’ve already started the transfers, and I’ll share as I go, providing side-by-side comparisons to show how good it’s going to look once it’s done.So, that’s it. Do you love this movie (or at least kind of like it)? Would you like to see it looking great! Do you want some on-of-a-kind incentives? Then reach into your pocket and lend a hand!
