Product: Night of the Living Dead (1990)
Rating: 1.0
A wretched, wretched remake
Why did Romero do this? I cannot possibly understand why he would let his masterpiece be disgraced. I also don't understand how anyone could like this garbage. The worst part is that all the characters have been turned into caricatures. There's no confusion over who's the good guy and who's the bad guy. Remember in the original ... Ben got locked out of the house (with zombies crowding around him) because Harry Cooper was too frightened to let him in? No, now he's locked out because Harry's trying to steal the gun from the plucky Barbara so he can take potshots at our Heroes. The acting and script have been reduced to the level of a high school play. When the TV anchorman talks about the dead returning to life, he rolls his eyes and makes a goofy face as if to say "how could ANYONE take this seriously?" Barbara weeps with a goofy half-grin on her face, and it seems like all Judy does is scream like a four year old. Everyone seems very self-aware, as if they've just had acting lessons from the entire cast of the "Scream" films. The new ending and additional scenes are just garbage. We get a nice feel-good happy ending. Romero's original vision of NOTLD as social commentary of the 60s is reduced to this message: "People get stupid when there's a crisis." Rock and roll, Savini. You surely hit the nail on the head with your remake of a classic - dumbed down and diluted for the masses.