Dead heat: The Norwegian Composite

Tagline: You can’t keep a good cop dead

Original title: Dead Heat
Original movie release: 1988
Fanedit release: December 2012 (originally created Feb 2011)
Original running time: 83 minutes.
Fanedit running time: 90 minutes.
Time cut: 7 mins added
Release: NTSC DVD5, 16x9
Genre: Horror Comedy Action


About: More info about the film (since it might draw a blank with a number of you) can be found below.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094961/

Like many of you, I had never heard of this film previously. It was not until a friend of mine from Norway had mentioned the film and his exclusive Norwegian vhs version and trying to edit it all together. He had no editing skills to speak of and sent me the tape to make it all work. It was more work then I had asked for (converting the PAL tape to ntsc, making the whole thing progressive, etc)

The film is a Horror Comedy starring Joe Piscopo and Treat Williams investigating crimes committed by otherwise previously dead criminals. It then spirals from there, featuring a lot of gory and nicely done special effects. The humor is present though not over the top and some of the things that do occur in the film strike me since it made it a lot more serious in tone. It should also be noted that the film stars Vincent price and Darren McGavin as well.

So what exactly does this consist of:. Anchor Bay released the film in the US on dvd and included about 20 mins of deleted/extra scenes. Some of these scenes ended up in rare tv airings of the film (like the cameo from Dick Miller) and all of the quality is pretty rough.
The Norwegian VHS tape (possibly accidentally) used their tv print of the film instead of the R-rated version for the home video market. This features the film in English but has burned in Norwegian subtitles. What makes this cut exclusive is that it features some of the deleted scenes that appear on the Anchor bay set (but in much better quality than the Anchor Bay versions) as well as quite a few scenes and odd flashbacks that only appear in this edition of the film

IntentionThis extends and slightly recuts the film to incorporate all of the television (and odd flashback sequences) that appear in the super rare (and official) Norwegian vhs version. Because of some of these new added scenes, a few seconds here and there had to be removed from the R-rated version due to them either contradicting what the actors just spoke about or for alternate angles/shots.

The film was shot open matte (So no worry about matting the tv footage and losing even more picture from the 16x9 matting)

Goodies dvd features dvd rom content with a lengthy about me that tells what edits were done as well as dvd case cover art. The about me also appears as menu screens on the disc itself

Great to see you and your edits back, Tranzor! Will be looking forward to this.

edit is done and should be available shortly--

I loved this movie when I was a kid. Haven't watch it in maybe 15/20 years (still have it on vhs). Is a great movie (it was for a kid).

Supeta said:

I loved this movie when I was a kid. Haven't watch it in maybe 15/20 years (still have it on vhs). Is a great movie (it was for a kid).

Click to expand...

It still holds up even when viewing it today, with the exception of the clothes it could technically pass for something more recently made (in a lifetime channel movie of the week fashion)

I'm sure that it still holds up. I still remember it as one of the funniest horrors made in the 80s but the last time I saw it I was a kid. I haven't watch the VHS in a long time basically because part of my VHS collection is stored in a weird unreachable way (and this one is part of that mess). Now the shelf is DVD territory and a pair of classic VHSs, but I do want to rewatch this movie. I don't have it on DVD because it is unreleased in my country. This is not the first movie that pops in my mind when I buy import and it has no extras (if I'm correct). But... I think that it is about time.


BTW Happy new year!!!

I did spend a great time watching your edit last night tranzor, thanks. I had never heard of this movie before. To address Supeta remark, the additional scenes nearly turn it into a somehow adult oriented experience IMHO. Too bad they were hardcoded with subtitles.
It would have probably took me hours browsing various movie forum to find something as genuinely entertaining as this one, what's more from the golden era for campy yet packed with action comedies (the 80s).

Happy new year folks

Supeta said:

I'm sure that it still holds up. I still remember it as one of the funniest horrors made in the 80s but the last time I saw it I was a kid. I haven't watch the VHS in a long time basically because part of my VHS collection is stored in a weird unreachable way (and this one is part of that mess). Now the shelf is DVD territory and a pair of classic VHSs, but I do want to rewatch this movie. I don't have it on DVD because it is unreleased in my country. This is not the first movie that pops in my mind when I buy import and it has no extras (if I'm correct). But... I think that it is about time.


BTW Happy new year!!!

Click to expand...

Ahh ,yes the US dvd from Anchor bay is loaded with extras actually so that would be the one you want to get

NewDeli said:

I did spend a great time watching your edit last night tranzor, thanks. I had never heard of this movie before. To address Supeta remark, the additional scenes nearly turn it into a somehow adult oriented experience IMHO. Too bad they were hardcoded with subtitles.
It would have probably took me hours browsing various movie forum to find something as genuinely entertaining as this one, what's more from the golden era for campy yet packed with action comedies (the 80s).

Happy new year folks

Click to expand...

Awesome, if you feel so inclined and using your same login info go here and leave it a review and rating:
http://www.fanedit.org/ifdb/

tranzor said:

Ahh ,yes the US dvd from Anchor bay is loaded with extras actually so that would be the one you want to get

Click to expand...

Ohhh yeah! I thought it was barebones edition. I'm going to buy the thing and check this edit (I love to watch old 80's "remodeled").

Thanks for the info.

I'm new to the forum. Sorry, I'm not very "interactive" person in the net (I love talking face to face, but writting makes my brain impatient), but looooove movies since... (my first memories deal with movies, maybe 2/3 years old). Really interested in fanedits (Made my Evil Dead trilogy epic in VHS when "Army of darkness" came out, and some other analog experiments in the 90s) but really never made one. I've seen some and I'll say that I liked The Thing grindhoused. That's my personal favourite movie and glad I enjoyed the experience. So... I'll thank you again.

Did anyone else experience freezing issues in the scene in which Roger gets resurrected? I was about to PM Tranzor on the subject, but I see others have watched the edit and haven't reported on this, so it must be my system.

Dwight Fry said:

Did anyone else experience freezing issues in the scene in which Roger gets resurrected? I was about to PM Tranzor on the subject, but I see others have watched the edit and haven't reported on this, so it must be my system.

Click to expand...

Hey Dwight,
This sounds more like a bad/faulty dvdr media issue then anything else. I watched this edit more times then I care to admit back when it was originally done over a year ago. When I finally made it available here, the only added/changed content was additional menus and that became my new master (burned on a taiyo yuden)

to ease your mind I did play this new master before and after Roger's resurrection and the disc played fine.

I would say to burn it on another disc. What media are you using?

When you get freezing while watching a film that is usually a sign of bad media and not the actual content itself. In some cases though it could be the player (my older 1990's Pioneer dvd players will not play anything made with convertX2dvd, those play fine for a bit, then freeze and stop)

tranzor said:

Hey Dwight,
This sounds more like a bad/faulty dvdr media issue then anything else. I watched this edit more times then I care to admit back when it was originally done over a year ago. When I finally made it available here, the only added/changed content was additional menus and that became my new master (burned on a taiyo yuden)

to ease your mind I did play this new master before and after Roger's resurrection and the disc played fine.

I would say to burn it on another disc. What media are you using?

When you get freezing while watching a film that is usually a sign of bad media and not the actual content itself. In some cases though it could be the player (my older 1990's Pioneer dvd players will not play anything made with convertX2dvd, those play fine for a bit, then freeze and stop)

Click to expand...

Couldn't possibly be a bad burn because there was no burn. I was playing the DVD files on VLC on my computer. I did exit and re-open the software a few times, I rebooted the computer, I tried again today, and still no luck. The freezing happens in the same exact areas.

On an unrelated note, that screaming corpse at the end of the dream sequence is a repeat from earlier in the movie, when Roger is brushing his hair and losing quite a few of it, he hallucinates that vision in the mirror.

Dwight Fry said:

Couldn't possibly be a bad burn because there was no burn. I was playing the DVD files on VLC on my computer. I did exit and re-open the software a few times, I rebooted the computer, I tried again today, and still no luck. The freezing happens in the same exact areas.

On an unrelated note, that screaming corpse at the end of the dream sequence is a repeat from earlier in the movie, when Roger is brushing his hair and losing quite a few of it, he hallucinates that vision in the mirror.

Click to expand...

I wanted to try and see if I can duplicate the error on the pc. I was able to do this using media player classic home cinema, though it still played through it. So I then used powerdvd to see what it was showing. At said scenes it was showing a massive bitrate spike (jumping as high as 14). This is an easy fix, just lower the bitrate and everything will be ok. I took down the one I had up now. My jvc dvd deck still played the disc fine, but my pioneers gave what you described and it showed the bitrate spike

My real concern here is what happened between my original older master and this newer one. My older one was played a number of times on the same dvd players and when it was still lurking on my pc hard drive for countless testing and sync checking, etc and had no issues, no spike bitrate

I also went through a few test discs. I am wondering if I ended up throwing out my good version and wrongly labeling a test disc? For the few that had my older one reported no problems when watching it. I currently have one of those people sending me my old version now since I threw it out after making my new master

Also if you know me I hate waiting. As I write this the spike issue is being corrected and the new version will be back up later tonight (might be a little less in quality but should be nothing really noticeable). The only change will be a "v2" on the main menu to help tell the difference.

The skull was in the mirror--ahhhh. I still like the liberties the distributors took with their version of the film

fixed the bitrate issue and I also updated the info pages (and menu) with the skull correction, "rarring" and then away we go--

Awesome, tranzor! Nice to find people around who actually do their best to fix issues, instead of the old "my files look fine at first sight so it stays as it is".

Dwight Fry said:

Awesome, tranzor! Nice to find people around who actually do their best to fix issues, instead of the old "my files look fine at first sight so it stays as it is".

Click to expand...

fixed and up (sending you a PM as well as one to those that be)