Extras on the first disc include Two audio commentaries, the first of which features director George A. Romero, actor and producer Karl Hardman, actress Marilyn Eastman and writer John Russo that first appeared on the Elite laserdisc way back when and which also appeared on Elite's Millennium Edition DVD release. There are a few slow spots here but by and large this is an excellent and truly informative discussion that covers the origins of the film as well as the production and distribution of the finished picture. There's a lot of excellent information here and the camaraderie between the participants makes it an enjoyable track. A second commentary (which also first appeared on the Elite laserdisc release) has also been carried over. The participants include producer Russell Streiner, production manager Vince Survinski and cast members Bill Hinzman, Judith O'Dea, Kyra Schon and Keith Wayne. This commentary isn't quite as warm as the first one but it's still an interesting listen. While it covers much of the same ground as the very thorough first track, it does so from a different point of view and so we wind up getting a different take on some of the stories that are told here. Between these two tracks, a lot of ground is covered and fans who haven't heard these commentaries by way of the past Elite releases will definitely enjoy these recordings and those who have heard them before might even enjoy revisiting them.

Also included on disc one is the never-before-seen Night Of The Anubis cut, which runs approximately eleven-minutes shorter than the feature cut of the film. This is also presented in high definition, taking up approximately 11GBs of space. This is essentially a work print of the film, the audio is in Dolby Digital Mono and it's presented with an optional introduction from Steiner that runs roughly eight-minutes in length and provides some welcome to this interesting alternate version of the well-known classic.

The bulk of the supplements, however, are found on the second disc starting with a selection of new supplements, the first of which features filmmakers Frank Darabont, Guillermo del Toro and Robert Rodriguez entitled Light In The Darkness. Over the span of just under twenty-four minutes, the three filmmakers share their thoughts on what makes NOTLD the classic that it is, why it's important not just from a film history stand point but a cultural stand point as well, it's influence on so many horror films that came in its wake and quite a bit more. From there, check out eighteen-minutes of never-before-seen 16mm dailies, presented silently but with a four-minute optional introduction from Gary Streiner. There's some alternate footage included in here that is interesting to see and it's great that this has been included on this release. In the twelve-minute Learning From Scratch writer John Russo details not only how he came on board to work on NOTLD but also how he and some of the others involved in the production cut their teeth working in the industrial film industry in Pittsburgh making various small scale commercial film productions. Complimenting this is three-minutes of TV Newsreel footage from 1967. Sourced from a rather rough VHS tape and presented silently with new music from composer Jeff Carney over top, this is important because it happens to include the only known/existing raw footage shot on the set of the film while it was in production. Walking Like The Dead is a new thirteen-minute featurette that gathers up ten different people that were cast to play zombies in the feature. Here they share their experiences and discuss what it was like on set, it's an interesting look into one of the less explored areas of the history of the film. In the twelve-minute Tones Of Terror producer Jim Cirronella talks about how and why the library music used in the film came to be, why certain selections are effective and the importance of the score to the quality of the film itself. Limitations Into Virtues takes twelve-minutes to let filmmakers Tony Zhou and Taylor Ramo provide a video essay that talks about the film's significance, importance and influence as well as ho Romero and company overcame issues brought about by a low budget to create a legitimate masterpiece.

There's a fair bit of archival material included here too, starting with an eighteen-minute selection of footage from the NBC program Tomorrow wherein Romero and Phantasm director Don Coscarelli are interviewed about their thoughts on horror films and the state of the genre in 1979 (which is when this footage was recorded). Higher Learning is a lengthy forty-six-minute segment that documents Romero's appearance at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival. Here Romero, with help from host Colin Geddes, talks about the history of the production, the film's distribution, it's legacy and the socio-political aspects that are so often discussed in the same breath as the film.

Also carried over from the Elite releases is an audio recording of Duane Jones' last interview which was recorded by journalist Tim Ferrante on December 13, 1987 at his residence on the campus of the College At Old Westbury in New York where he taught. As the audio plays out a slideshow of stills plays out underneath. This is the only in-depth interview that Jones ever gave about Night Of The Living Dead, which is a shame as he's got some fascinating insight into the film and its effect on pop culture. We also get an eleven-minute archival interview with Judith Ridley wherein she talks about her role in the film, memories of her time on the set and more.

Rounding out the extras are an original 1968 theatrical trailer, a 2017 re-release trailer, two TV spots, five radio spots, a half-minute news clip called Venus Probe that notes Mariner 5's findings in 1967 that tie into the film, menus and chapter selection. Included inside the packaging is a color insert booklet that contains credits for the feature and for the Blu-ray disc as well as a new essay on the film penned by film critic Stuart Klawans.

It is worth noting that there are other releases out there with a fair bit of supplemental content on them not carried over to this release, the biggest omission being the eighty-four-minute documentary One For The Fire that was included on the old DVD release from Miramax (and was subsequently included on the Japanese Blu-ray release from Happinet). Still, what Criterion have assembled for this package is, in a word, impressive.

Night Of The Living Dead remains a high point in the history of the horror film, a picture that remains as intense and involving now as it has ever been. The Criterion Collection has done an excellent job bringing the film to Blu-ray. While it wasn't possible to carry over every single supplement from past editions, what is here is very good indeed and the audio/video presentation is top notch, all of which makes this release well worth the DVD Talk Collector's Series stamp of approval!

Ian lives in NYC with his wife where he writes for DVD Talk, runs Rock! Shock! Pop!. He likes NYC a lot, even if it is expensive and loud.