Night of the Living Dead (1990) Review
Written by: TERRORWATCH
I first saw this movie when my father rented it out on VHS back in the early 1990's and its stuck with me ever since. Night of the living dead was created in 1968 by George A. Romero and was followed by another two zombie movies to make it a trilogy. This version of Night of the living dead was brought to us in 1990 by gore master Tom Savini. This movie is a remake of the old classic movie and its fair to say that this movie wasn't a let down what so ever. The movie is about the US being taken over by a mysterious problem which were turning the dead into living flesh eaters. A couple of survivors get together in a abandoned house and try to survive through the night. The previous 1968 version was created with a small budget and in Tom's younger days, he was on the verge of doing the s.e work for it. However he got called to go to Vietnam and couldn't do it so after years went by he got the great job of directing a remake. The movie didn't get no bad publicity what so ever and the remake didn't let anybody down, in fact i enjoy the remake more than the original.
As this is a remake Tom wanted to make his own changes but also keep to the original story and look. He done this very well by hiring actors that were very Simlar to the 1968's version. In fact they were like identical and each giving off the same look and attitude as the first. The cast included Tony Todd, Patricia Tallman, Tom Towles and McKee Anderson. Tony Todd did a great job in playing Ben in the movie, he gave the performance just the kick it needed to stand up to the original. The man was lively and something blew a fire up that guys ass, it was excellent to see the man in charge, it really worked. Tony Todd went on to work on the Candyman movies to follow and it was nice to see him in a different role because hes preferred to as the mighty Candyman. Another main great actor was the very brittle with a bite, Patricia Tallman, her role as Barbara was great. First you see her as a really scared young woman that wouldn't say boo to a ghost, to a proper zombie killer that left her emotions somewhere in her back pocket. It was great and her slim line figure didn't stop the whole super woman look. The only problem with the movie was that the outsiders and the minor cast spoilt it. I mean it got corny when everyone was shooting zombies like it was a game and there really bad acting and speech didn't help either.
The zombies in the movie were very cool and the amount of gore on screen was just nice enough to make love to. The zombies also had there own identity's which made it great. The zombies wasn't as gory and as fucked as Day of the dead zombies, just little laid back to let us down. The gore was cool, allot of severed arms and lags and zombies left right and centre was chewing on them. Another great addition to the movie is in one scene you actually get to see shots fired at a zombie in the bare flesh. They did mange to pull this off and it looks like real chunks of flesh were being shot out. Its little things like this that the movie really scores high on and it reallydoes. The first scenes in the cemetery were excellent, a sunny day, bright and fresh. Turned into a zombie frenzy and the sweet sunny graveyard turned into a hemmed in nightmare. This was great and gave me nightmares about it, just the feeling of tight terror really got to me. Overall the movie is cool for s.e and gore nothing to worry about here.
The music in the movie was there at every moment, it was a sort of creepy weird piano tune which really went down well for me. The effects were great and allot of torn flesh sounds and great gun shot sounds were excellent. The scenes in the movie were boring though, allot of the same stuff but to be honest what can you do with a story thats based in a house. Overall the movie is a good one and really takes the piss out of its original movie. Great s.e with a well directed movie makes the movie a remade classic in its own right. Tom's mum would be proud!