NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1990)

 

DIRECTED by Tom Savini

SCREENPLAY by George A. Romero based on

Night of the Living Dead by John Russo & George A. Romero

STARRING - Tony Todd as  Ben,  Patricia Tallman as Barbara Todd,  Tom Towles as Harry Cooper,  McKee Anderson as Helen Cooper,  William Butler as Tom Bitner,  Katie Finneran as Judy Rose Larson,  Bill Moseley as Johnny Todd,  Heather Mazur as Sarah Cooper,  Russell Streiner as Sheriff McClelland,  Greg Funk as Cemetery Zombie,  Pat Logan as Uncle Rege

PLOT - A brother and sister - Barbara and Johnny - are visiting thier mother's graveside when they are attacked by the walking dead. For some unknown reason the recently deceased are coming to life and feasting on the flesh of the living.

Johnny is killed in the initial attack and Barbara flees to a deserted farmhouse. She is soon joined by a fellow survivor - a man named Ben and they then discover further survivors hiding in the cellar.

Can this disparate group put aside thier differences and defend the zombie besieged farmhouse until help arrives ? Can they survive the night of the living dead ?....

PERFORMANCES - When reviewing a film like this - a remake of a classic - it's hard not to compare every aspect of the new version to the original, so rather than try to avoid that particular elephant in the room I'm just going to go out and say it - the acting in this version is a lot better than the acting in the original.

Not that there's anything really wrong with the actors in the original (actually they're all pretty damn good for what was at the time just intended to be a cheap second feature drive-in filler), indeed, a lot of the performances in the original are downright iconic (who can forget Russ Streiner as Johnny intoning "they're coming to get you Barbara" or Duane Jones as Ben - one the very first, if not THE very first black leading man seen onscreen).

However the fact remains that Jones aside most of the other cast where all enthusiastic amateurs in the original, whereas here we get actual professional actors - including some people who have become virtual "royalty" in the horror genre.

Ben is played this time by Candyman himself - the late, great Tony Todd. Todd (one of the aforementioned royalty of modern horror) gives his full on A-game with his version of Ben.

Ben is still just as stubborn as he was in the original, but this time round he's not as efficient - he's more fallible and seems much more emotionally affected by the events going on around him. There's times where he ruminates on the situation and sheds tears about the state of the world the characters find themselves in. Mind you - he's still an utter badass when he needs to be - Duane Jones never got to Kung-Fu kick a zombie or even rugby tackle one - Todd's Ben gets to do BOTH.

One character who's practically unrecognisable from the original is Barbara. This time she's played by Patricia Tallman. In the original version Barbara sees her brother Johnny killed by a zombie in the opening minutes and spends the rest of the movie in a catatonic nervous breakdown induced state, generally being a bit of a liability to the other characters until she's eventually eaten by a ravening horde of zombies.

Tallman's Barbara is a much stronger character in every sense. She starts off pretty much the same - she's visiting her mum's grave with Johnny (this time played with relish by a young Bill Moseley - more horror royalty right there), once more Johnny is killed and a terrified Barbara flees to the farmhouse where she meets Ben. At this point things start to change - instead of retreating into her shell Barbara doesn't lose her nerve and soon becomes every bit as efficient a zombie killer as Ben.

Barbara eventually becomes the film's moral centre, she's the voice of reason between the ego driven feud that Ben and Harry engage in - frequently calling out the two for bickering. We see her transform over the course of the movie from the timid repressed girl she is at the beginning to a hardened and embittered survivor. Although it does seem that this journey costs a bit of her soul come the closing credits.

The rest of the cast all hold up pretty well too - frequent Rob Zombie collaborator Tom Towles plays Harry Cooper this time round - he's every bit as obnoxious as he was first time round, only here he's even more odious than the original. He's also a lot funnier as well, he has this habit of flying into a rage and calling people a "bunch of yo yo's" which strikes me as amusing every time I watch this film.

Harry lacks the (slight) redemption that he gets in the original. In that film there's this sense that Harry was actually right all along (it WAS safer down in the cellar rather than attempting to defend the farmhouse), here he doesn't get that - but then this version of the character doesn't really deserve it anyway. This is a great performance from Towles all round.

The other characters are all played and written in a very similar way to the original. Harry's wife Helen (McKee Anderson) is just as pissed off with being married to an arsehole like Harry as she is in the original. Harry and Helen's daughter - Sarah (Heather Mazur) still turns into a zombie (although she doesn't murder her mum with a trowel this time round) and local kids Tom and Judy (William Butler and Katie Finneran) are still the loving couple they always where - although this time round they're portrayed as being a bit more like hillbilly rednecks (they're probably brother and sister in this timeline). All concerned give decent performances.

SFX - Zombies, zombies and more zombies - all presented to you via brilliant practical makeup effects.

VIOLENCE - As with the original there's lots of flesh chomping, zombie stomping action.

Johnny's death is notable for being the same as in the original, but this time they use a blatant dummy when he smashes his head on the gravestone. It's an effect that hasn't aged well.

My favourite zombie kill is when Ben runs one over in his truck. The zombie doesn't die straight away - he instead crawls around, his body broken and twisted.

Tom and Judy still die by being blown up in the truck (and still get thier barbequed remains eaten by zombies) but this time it's Tom's fault that they die - the utter twonk decides that it's literally a good idea to blast a petrol pump with a shotgun. It's Darwinism at its finest.

The most famous bit of violence from the original movie is the end scene where final survivor Ben is mistakenly shot dead by the redneck cavalry who mistake him for a zombie. That DOESN'T happen this time round, instead we get a different twist at the end that will make you view one particular character very differently. It still involves a shotgun and a survivor though, but I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen this version.

RATING - One of the best remakes of a classic film I've ever seen. Every bit as good as the original.

THIS is how you do a new version of an iconic and beloved classic.

5 reanimated corpses out of 5. A must see.

ART -