Review of Night of the Living Dead (1990) by Robert B — 25 Jan 2012

Night of the Living Dead (Tom Savini, 1990).

Another of those "I swear I reviewed this back when it came out, but can find no record whatsoever of that review" reviews. Twenty years later, therefore, I'm reviewing it. Film culture has changed almost entirely in those twenty years; the idea of remaking a classic horror film is now as common in Hollywood as is making a rom-com, and having someone who worked on the original direct is not out of the question. In 1990, though, that was groundbreaking stuff, and we were all slavering at the bit to see what Tom Savini, who got his start as the make-up guy on the original 1968 production of Night of the Living Dead, would do with Romero's updated (without the assistance of longtime confederate John Russo, who wrote the original novel upon which the first script, by Russo and Romero, was based) screenplay and a somewhat better-known cast who, unlike the cast of the original, were obviously detined for bigger and better things rather than being friends of the crew (or, in many cases, the crew themelves).

I won't say it's totally botched. I would have in 1990. In fact, I'm pretty sure I did in 1990. Remaking Night of the Living Dead and making Barbara a strong, intelligent female lead may have made for good press, and in fact the character of Barbara is written quite well (and brought to life exceptionally by Patricia Tallman, who would go on to fame and fortune in the TV series Babylon 5 soon after). But what you get is... not Night of the Living Dead. It's something else entirely when the major part of Ben's burden-looking after a dazed Barbara who is deeply in shock, and was never all that well put-together to begin with-is taken off his shoulders. He has more time to make good decisions, rather than the stressed-out-but-viable ones he makes in the original film. Only that doesn't happen here, and that makes the entire film even less plausible. Well, okay, talking about "less plausible" when dealing with a zombie movie is probably stretching it a bit, but come on. Look at the final montage in the original movie, with the rednecks driving around popping zombies. The situation is clearly under control. How did civilization get to the point of the beginning of Dawn of the Dead? That question has been nagging at zombie fans for almost half a century, and if anything, the remake makes it even less plausible that we could get from point A to point B, given that even rednecks could keep this thing under control. But I digress.

In case you've been living in a cave since 1968, here's the plot: Barbara (Tallman) and Johnny (House of 1000 Corpses' Bill Moseley) are in suburban Pittsburgh to put flowers on their mother's grave after church when Johnny is accosted and killed by what seems to be a demented mourner (make-up artist Greg Funk in one of his few on-camera roles). Barbara flees to a nearby farmhouse, where she finds Ben (Tony Todd, who would become an A-list horror actor two years later in Candyman) already holed up. The crazed folks outside, of course, turn out to be the living dead, hungering for the flesh of the living, and Barbara and Ben, plus a cast of others who turn up later in the film, have to figure out how to either shore up their defenses to stop the zombies from getting in or escape to someplace more defensible.

I've only touched on the case here. Tom Towles (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer), William Butler (My Dog Skip), Katie Finneran (You've Got Mail) in her acting debut, Heather Mazur (from the short-lived TV adaptation of Crash) in HER acting debut, and TV character actress McKee Anderson (Angel on My Shoulder) round out the principals here. This is not a low-budget-horror-film cast. Savini, on the other hand, gets lost in the same mire a number of other successful small-screen directors get lost in: directing for the big screen is a different beast entirely. (To date, Savini has not attempted to direct another feature-length film.) Specifically, here, the pace gets muddled a lot towards the middle.

None of that, however, changes the movie's major failing: taking Barbara's character through a one-eighty without any thought as to what sort of fallout that would entail among the character dynamics or the greater interaction with the world in general. And, as a result, it stands as an interesting, if failed, attempt to kind of requantify the canon. It's worth watching once for comparison purposes, but for the most part, just stick with the original and you'll be fine. **.