Format: DVD from Richard A. Mautino Memorial Library through interlibrary loan on The New Portable.
There are few more seminal works in the horror genre than George Romero’s original Night of the Living Dead. I suppose it was only a matter of time before it was remade. In a way, it’s kind of impressive that no one tried for more than 20 years. Eventually, that remake became a reality under the hands of Tom Savini, someone much more known as a creature creator and master of practical effects. This was his first feature-length project, and his first not for television. He’s an interesting choice for director. While he was inexperienced, he certainly had a great deal of first-hand knowledge of how to work in the genre.
I’m not going to spend a great deal of time here dealing with the story. There are two reasons for this. The first is that, frankly, you should already be familiar with Night of the Living Dead. Savini’s version doesn’t really do anything that Romero’s didn’t do first. This is a straight retelling of the story with the changes existing only in a couple of the characters and in the third act. The second is that there really isn’t a lot of plot. Some people end up trapped in a rural house while the recently reanimated dead attempt to break in and eat them. Most of the tropes of the subgenre were founded in the original—slow zombies, creatures that can only be stopped by destroying the brain or lighting them on fire, bites infect the victim and eventually turn them into zombies, etc. In that respect, there’s nothing new here.
