Zombie Movie Review (23) of the Day: Night of the Living Dead 3D

Today I start the reviews of the remakes of the original Romero zombie trilogy. This includes Dawn of the Dead 2004, Night of the Living Dead: 3D 2006, and Day of the Dead 2008. These films are not a reboot of the series, as they are not even related to one another as sequels or even happening in the same universe. However, I am still going to do them in the order of the original trilogy rather than chronologically. So today’s review it on Night of the Living Dead 3D.

Night of the Living Dead 3D is called 3D for two reasons, one, it was originally shot in 3D, and two, as a pun for being the third Night of the Living Dead film. There is a lot I do not like about this film I do not like. I think it is meant to be a parody so it is trying to be a B-movie on purpose, which usually causes a movie to fail as a cult classic. Either it will go mainstream like Grindhouse: Planet Terror/Death Proof or it is forgotten. I am almost certain that this movie is not meant to be taken seriously but I am not going to go easy on it nonetheless. What does this mean? Well you all finally get to see my Cinema Snob impression. That’s right. I’m going to rip this movie apart. However, like Brad Jones (aka Cinema Snob) I do not necessarily hate the movie as much as I seem to in the review. This movie, is watchable—trust me, there are zombie movies out there that are not watchable at all that get 0 out of 5 star ratings. For the most part though, I really do not like this movie.

The movie starts out similarly enough; actually…it starts out so much like the original that the opening credits sequence is the exact same one from the 1968 version! Wait, the camera zooms out…ok, so a guy in the movie is watching the original. Well that breaks the rule that you never reference a better movie than your own in your movie. I am also thinking two things about what I just saw: this movie either loves the original so wants us to know that this movie is very different and that all the characters are different, or, this movie is making a bad fucking joke. I would assume that since this movie’s universe knows about zombies, and Romero and that the characters in this movie will be different right? No such luck, they all have the same names. There are a few characters that were not in the other films but everyone else has the same names and even the same relationships to each other. That is not funny, movie!

But seriously, the movie from there runs like the other Night of the Living Dead films. Johnny and Barb (not Barbra, but Barb) are on their way to the cemetery. Right here is where the movie splits off continuity, and at first I feel like it is being creative, changing the plot slightly, going for a different feel. It certainly feels different. They are not visiting a grave but attending a funeral and it is not their father or their mother who as died this time, but their aunt. No one is around and Johnny jokes with Barb, the zombie’s attack Johnny drives off (asshole) and Barb runs away.

She does not find the farmhouse that was relatively close by in the other films but finds the funeral home/morgue where off course there are more zombies. I will say one good thing about the movie: the zombies are fast, and the makeup is decent and by that, I mean it does not look like I did as a zombie for Halloween. So I give points to the movie for having realistic zombies (as realistic as it could get anyway). The fact that they are slow zombies means that the creators have some decency and attraction to Romero and right now, all the points for this movie are riding on the zombies.

She meets the cemetery caretaker/funeral home director played by Sid Haig (remember that name it will come up again in another review). He tells her to run and she does. At first, I thought this would be Ben because he seems to be a little badass and he saves Barb. But it isn’t Ben. She runs and walks down a road, as it gets darker out. She texts Johnny to inform him he is a terrible brother and to come back for her. Eventually she gets a text saying, “I’m coming for you Barb”, a reference to the quote “They’re coming to get you Barbara, they’re coming for you”. I am also okay with this reference and it gives the movie a few points.

While reading the text zombies come out of nowhere and attack her and her phone. A guy on a motorcycle shows up and thanks to bad editing, punches a zombie out of the way. Guess who this is. Go on guess. Guess who this thin young white guy on a motorcycle is. Nope, it is not Tom, try again. IT’S BEN. THEY MADE BEN FUCKING WHITE! Well, I guess they had to so that no one will confuse this movie for having symbolism. In fact, there is not one black person in the whole movie. I don’t think there is even a black zombie. I may be mistaken about this, so correct me if I am wrong.

White Ben turns out to be friends with a family, the Coopers, who own a farmhouse down the road. Well now, it makes sense that he is not black: there is now way the white hick would be friends with him if he were not white! This movie is racist! Also, Ben and Harry are friend!? Furthermore, they own the farmhouse. In the 68 version, we find the house with the owner dead so we never know who she is, in the 90 version it is the house of Tom’s uncle. Now it is the Cooper family’s house. I am ok with this a bit, because the movie is being creative with the original idea. I think it is stupid but I respect it. Actually, I do not think that is stupid, what I really think is stupid is that technically Tom still does in away own the house. Tom is the Coopers fucking son. This just seems lazy and here is why; the movie made everyone related and friends so that no real character explanations have to go on. There is a reason why the movie has no time for character development because we need to watch Tom fuck Judy in the barn!

There are several continuity errors involving Barb and her footwear. In the original she lost her shoes, in this one she cannot make up her mind if she lost them, changed them, took them off, also this movie suffers from a severe case of “off-screen disease”, not only because of the shoes thing but also because of Harry’s bandage appears out of nowhere.

The affects are lacking as well. Judy is naked but her downstairs is clearly a prosthetic so she does not have to show us her real vagina. You are already naked and we see everything else! I don’t see why you care if people see the rest, they are going to think you are fully naked and exposed anyway…or they would if the prosthetic wasn’t so obvious.

The Cooper’s are also potheads and pot growers, which is why they never call the police, and Karen is watching, yep, the original Night of the Living Dead in the living room. Um…Karen, are you that oblivious? You really don’t notice any similarities to the movie and your OWN FUCKING LIFE!? It is okay; Karen always dies and ends up biting her dad. This part they did keep the same. However, there is a high as a kite character in the house that apparently a hired hand for the farm. He is bit and we watch what happens. Want to know what happens? This movie turns into Return of the Living Dead all of a sudden. Let me explain...well first let me tell you what happens after he is bit because the movie tells us why there are zombies. Haig comes in to explain what is going on. Apparently, his dad ran the business better and he never wanted to do this job. He made money by taking stuff from people to burn in the crematorium, like illegal stuff: bio-hazardous medical waste, military chemical weapon stuff, and radioactive stuff. Nevertheless, he never burned any of it. He also never burnt any of the bodies that were meant to be cremated because he has a fear of fire. All that shit leaked out and onto the bodies and they became zombies. He then tells us that anyone bite will die and become one but the ones that are bit do not become zombies right away, they act as if they are still alive. Sound familiar?

Everyone dies except Barb, Tovar (Haig), and Ben. Turns out, Tovar is crazy and this phenomenon has driven him mad with divine power over life and death, he wants to kill everyone so they can come back as zombies and live forever. I am not sure he understands what it means to be a zombie, especially in this universe. Tovar has kept his dad alive and feeds him his blood. He does this by cutting himself and letting his dad suck it out of the wound. THIS SHOULD CAUSE HIM TO BECOME INFECTED AND TURN INTO A ZOMBIE! Also these zombies are somewhat sentient as Johnny and Barb’s mom turn up as zombies walking together.

The movie ends with that whole “or-is-it” feel and Barb lives just like in the 90 remake.

So what is the rating? I can see how the movie could be viewed as fun and entertaining and it is certainly watchable. However, if it is on purpose, was everything on purpose? The acting was not that great. It was not as bad as Flesh Eater, but it was still bad. The affects were ok but at times, they were just dumb the movie is a cop-out to Romero and though it is parody, it also feels like one of those cheap rip-offs. As a remake of a Romero I would give this movie a 1 out of 5 stars, but since I am reviewing it as a zombie movie in general, I give it 1 ½ out of 5 stars.

Zombie Movie Review (4) of the Day: Night of the Living Dead 1990 (10/23/11)

"There's another one for the fire"

So here we are 22 years later since the original Night of the Living Dead. This '90 version is a remake but it is not one of those remakes by other people, oh no. This movie is also done by George Romero and John Russo but it was directed by the great Tom Savini. Like I said it has been over 2 decades, everyone involved has a great deal more experience under their belts, effects and technology have improved, and they finally have the budget they always wanted for the original.

So is it better? Worse? About the same? This can be a loaded and philosophical question. I mean most times even if the guys that do a remake do it well, the original fan base gets passed at them for messing with their cult classic. However, that danger does not exist here as the same exact people did the remake with the same exact screenplay.

The movie opens with a nice opening credit sequence where we will see Romero's as well as his wife Christine who helped produce it (they met on the set of Dawn and fell in love), Russo, and Savini, about a hundred times to overcompensate for the lack of copyrighting faux pas back in the day.

Savini wanted to do an updated movie with better effects and relevance to the modern era but he wanted it to stay true to the original. How to do this? Well they decided: let's do the movie like we never saw or made the original. That being said, it is pretty much a faithful shot for shot remake.

However, certain things obviously changed to make it more relevant for the time. The racial tension between Ben and Cooper is still present only it has more of a subtle undertone. The main difference in characters is that Barbara is now a stronger, cool headed, fully fleshed out, lead character rather than the catatonic she was in the original. This being mostly a result of the sexual revolution and let me tell you something: I fecking love Barbara in this. She is wonderful. Once again, like the last Ben, the actor just walked on, did a smashing performance and was signed on right there and then. The makeup is certainly better. I mean the original did not even have any make up. However, the makeup is also more realistic than Savini's job in Day. That is what five more years experience, effects updates, and a bigger budget will give you.
There are also subtle differences in the film. At the end a new broadcast confirms my original suspicion that it is late August as the broadcast states it is the 23rd. In addition, this time, Johnny and Barbara are visiting the grave of their mother rather than their father.

I also love this ending. I will not give anything away but what i will say is that it is different and it is still fantastic. The rednecks are back are more in your face than ever before in a Romero movie and Barbara watching them have fun killing the undead, makes the observation that "we're them and they're us" Which is really philosophical. This is why I love these films: there are always existential overtones! Anyway, the question is again asked: are we worth saving? Are we any better? That is the thing about zombies. It's more of a Jaws kind of movie than a Freddy, Jason, etc movie, the villain is not evil, zombies don't kill for fun, they kill, like the shark in Jaws, for food, they are hungry. And with the small exception of Bub, they don't know any better. The real monsters and villains of these films are the other people.

Anyway, so in 1969 we had very prevalent racism. And in 1990? Well....HIV/AIDS. A new virus is sweeping the world over; there are a lot of rumors, propaganda and misinformation going on. People are terrified that if they just touch you, you will be infected. When really, they are not that threatening, as Barbara points out about the zombies, "they are so slow, we could just walk right by them" suggesting, people with AIDS are not to be feared so much. Unless their fluids get into your fluids, and in fact, the real people to watch out for are the ones who want to kill them on site and have a good time while doing it!

So is the remake better? Overall yes! The original is still a great film with great messages and an ironic ending. However, in the remake, the acting is better, the make-up is better, the effects are better, the zombies are more convincing, and it still has a dark uncomfortable feel to it, claustrophobic almost and surreal. It is effective as a horror and it was done with fans in mind. The great lines of "they're dead, they're all messed up", "another one for the fire", and "They're coming to get you Barbara" are still in the remake.

And as a side note fun fact, towards the end a guy that grabs Barbara is played by none other than Greg Nicotero. Nicotero, as I mention in Day, is one of the many followers of Savini and who would go on to have his own huge effects company and end up doing the makeup/effects for several future Romero movies and is currently doing work for The Walking Dead.

Overall, I give this film a bump up from 3 out 5 for the original to 4.5 (4 1/2) out of 5.

Zombie Movie Review (1) of the Day: Night of the Living Dead (1968)

"...Yeah they're dead. They're... ...all messed up..."

So I'm starting to get the hang of blogging and I plan to add even more sections and move the old one's around to where they belong like making my pages into posts. There are so many zombie movies to get thru. i won't being doing all of them unless i get a request for one i have refused to watch or acknowledge as being good or a true zombie movie. This review will be a bit longer than most because it is the back-story to the modern zombie. Anyway, let us begin with where it all started:

Before 1968, nothing that involved zombies involved the zombies we know today. Mostly these movies were about magical/voodoo zombies, which either were the risen dead forced to do the bidding of the one who raised them or people under deep hypnosis. They never really ate anyone but would often kill people if ordered to. Then George Romero came along with his 1968 movie that started it all Night of the Flesh Eaters. I’m sorry what? You say you heard it called Night of the Living Dead, not Flesh Eaters? You say that night of the flesh eaters is a different movie? You are right! Romero originally was going to call his movie night of the flesh eaters but found out that this already existed, so at the last minute they changed the title card that also cut off the copyright symbol and so Night of the Living Dead had no copyright.

This was Romero's first movie and it was him and nine other people that brought it together. Co-writing the movie was John Russo who went on to do his own zombie movie series. Also working with them was Bill Hinzman who played the first zombie on screen, did some of the lighting, and would go on to make a parallel tangent movie called Flesh Eater and also be the cinematographer for another parallel Romeroverse movie called Children of the Living Dead Needless to say the 10 of them had barely any money so the movie really had no budget. That being said, the film is fantasic if you take that into perspective.

The film starts out with Johnny and his sister Barbara bringing flowers to their father’s grave which is quite a long drive from home. Johnny teases Barbara about being scared and then in irony is attacked and killed. Barbara runs into a nearby house and soon Ben (the protagonist) enters the scene. He has come from the nearby city and has seen some horrific stuff. Ben decides the safest thing to do is to board up the windows and doors to keep the things out, not realizing that the noise generated by all that will end up drawing even more zombies towards the house. We later meet the rest of the cast: the young couple: Tom and Judy, and the Coopers (Harry and Helen) and their daughter Karen who is injured. Cooper thinks the safest thing to do is go into the cellar and board up the one door and this causes a rivalry between Ben and Cooper. In the end, both are equal parts right and wrong about their ideas. I am not going to sum up the whole movie because I do not want to spoil anything.

The movie has some very hard-hitting messages some on purpose and some purely accidental ones. Romero and the other nine mostly talked about the Vietnam War (in fact Tom Savini who will later be a great part of Romero movies, was a freshman film student inspired by the Man with a Thousand Faces to do make-up and effects, wanted to work on NOTLD but ended up in Vietnam) and tried to put some allegorical stuff into the movie about pointless wars, unknown enemies, and people being forced into fighting situations, surrounded by death. The unintentional message is centered on racism and power struggles. Ben is black and the antagonist (who is not the zombies) is a man by the name of Mr. Cooper who is white. Ben tells Cooper off, states that he is the boss of the upstairs portion of the house, and is not going to take orders from Cooper. This movie bear in mind was released the same year that Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. So intentional or not, people found symbolism in the movie the ending is also a twist and very ironic which Romero is known for but I am not going to give that away.

In the end, I give this movie 3 out of 5 stars. If you ignore the bad effects due to a lack of funding it is a fantastic movie. Moreover, if you think about just how successful it was and still is, despite their being pretty much no budget it is surprising how great it is. It could have been a lot worse. The acting is phenomenal except for Barbra who has hardly any lines, the plot is great, the idea behind it is interesting and revolutionary in its day seeing how it created a new genre of horror, and it has soci-political redeeming value.