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Cast:
Tony Todd (Ben), Patricia Tallman (Barbara Todd), Tom Towles (Harry Cooper), McKee Anderson (Helen Cooper), William Butler (Tom Bitner), Katie Finneran (Judy Rose Larson), Bill Moseley (Johnny Todd), Heather Mazur (Sarah Cooper), and Russell Streiner (Sheriff McClelland) Directed by Tom Savini.
Review:
If you remember, George A. Romero and John Russo wrote a film called Night of the Living Dead in 1968. Russo was the one who came up with the idea to make a narrative about a runaway that sees aliens harvesting corpses for food in a cemetery that Romero combined with ideas of a flesh-eating ghoul and some stuff "inspired" by Richard Matheson's book I Am Legend (1954). When the original intended title of "Night of the Flesh Eaters" was changed to what you see today, the copyright notice was accidentally removed. The Dead series went two ways: Romero did his first follow-up with Dawn of the Dead in 1978 while Russo wrote a novel called Return of the Living Dead in the late 1970s that got turned into its own film in 1985. Anyway, Romero wanted to make a remake of the film in part because of the worry that someone else might do one first because of the lack of copyrights and such; a five-year battle had been spent in lawsuits with Continental Releasing that saw them get the rights but little money because the company had gone out of business. The fact that he was approached by Menahem Golan of the 21st Century Film Corporation made it all too easy, and he is credited as the sole screenplay writer (as based on the 1968 film by Romero and Russo) alongside executive producer while Russo served as a producer with original producer Russell Streiner. The film was the first (and so far, only) theatrical effort by Tom Savini, who had thought about being the one for effects work for this film but was instead drawn to serve as director (his previous experience in that field was episodes of Tales from the Darkside). Calling it an apparent nightmare where the producers only let less than half of his ideas come through (combined with cuts made to avoid an X rating), the result was a minor flop with audiences. Nine years after the release of this film, Russo came up with his own revised version of the 1968 film and called it the "30th Anniversary Edition" that saw a handful of new scenes to try and give a "more modern pace."
The movie follows the original for a good deal of its beats, whether that involves the opening sequence of the cemetery that leads to a character dying at the hands of falling onto a gravestone, the confrontation in trying to get a car running with a fiery end, and a character being "another one for the fire." There are a handful of differences, with probably the easiest being the fact that the character of Barbara is given something to actually do in this one after the graveyard sequence. Granted, there were interpretations that called the original some sort of subversive film within 1960s society. Sure. I think that is people just trying to dance around just not saying "oh look, zombie film, what a fun one". The splatter film had its innovators, and Romero is right there at the forefront that made it great exploitation. The remake doesn't exactly improve on anything done, but I was fine with the overall result because its familiarity works to the advantage of being something I like to see rather than just loud noise. Todd asserts a confident presence just as much as one had seen with Duane Jones twenty years prior, even if the conflict between him and Towles is probably more hotheaded than before to moderate results. Tallman fares better because there is more reason portrayed here (look, if you want catatonic, Judith O'Dea did exactly what was to do back then) that gets to go through the wringer with weary timing that gets to handle the climax with useful results. The effects were meant to not be overblown in gore (so as to respect the original), which basically means one gets stuff that was inspired by such events like an autopsy or death camp footage that works about on the level one would hope for 1990. The 88-minute runtime is slightly shorter than the original film that may or may not be as cynical as the original depending on how you interpret the ones who stand in the presence of hunting the undead that didn't get killed in the first days. As a whole, it stands firmly in the middle: it doesn't do anything great with this familiar material, but as a remake that managed to be moderately entertaining (and a cash grab attempt for Romero and company), one can't go wrong here with a decent time here.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
Next: Sisters.
