| Night of the Living Dead 1990: A Review The first, and hopefully only remake of a living dead classic (James 'Scooby Doo' Gunn has evil plans of re-making the perfect Dawn of the Dead!) however, this undead remake was in fact helmed by living dead effects man, Tom Savini and Romero was also involved in the re-writing and production. So all in all, another great undead package for the 90's. If you know the story of the original Night, this one is of course, basically the same, although updated for the modern ways of the 1990's. In this version of Romero's cult 1968 shocker, Barbara is no longer a whimpering wreak who is unable to protect herself, she is now a strong and independent woman of the 90's while Ben has become somewhat of an unstable case who while being strong, is emotionally on the edge and barely able to cope. It seems that society has flipped the roles of men and women, so much for equality, well, at least in this movie anyway, real life isn't so extreme in role-reversal and that's good for both parties. Other differences in this movie are obvious; this movie is in colour! Duh! Well, Night 68 was in colour on some video releases after undergoing the sacrilegious ordeal of the 'colorization process' leaving Ben's jumper brighter than fire and the zombie's hair green! Fortunately for this film, there is no green hair or slightly inaccurate effects. In fact, Savini, Romero and the effects crew all researched medical journals to discover what actually happens during decomposition and what a dead body really looks like. And this was to great effect. The zombies are the best yet, although not as gruesome like in Day of the Dead or as stiff as in Dawn of the Dead, but they are anatomically correct with emaciated faces and ears out of proportion along with 'Y-Section' zombie shambling through the graveyard with his clothes cut down the back like in a real funeral parlor. However, not all is good and glorious in this movie. The acting for the most part is either dreadful and makes you want to kill yourself so you don't have to listen anymore to the mood swings of Judy Rose or the drastically new Barbara who has been swung from one extreme to the other. But still, it is interesting to compare the two Night's and see how much society has changed. We are also blessed by seeing movie rednecks in their true movie element drinking beer and abusing zombies by hanging them from trees or betting on how long they can take a beating before dying! The script may have changed and the acting may have suffered from certain casting mistakes (which we see now but didn�t then) and the overall feel of the movie snorts at you occasionally with an essence of TV-Movie, but still, an appearance by Bill 'Chop-Top' Moseley as Johnny is a delight (despite his rather rubbery demise - you'll understand when watching the movie). The effects, like all the undead movies outshine the movie beforehand and are a creative joy making you believe there are really zombies out there as you lock your doors and check outside from your boarded up windows. This movie is real fun to watch and captures the life and vitality of a Romero-based zombie movie after the fading effects of Day of the Dead (which suffered through unjust budget cuts.) Night 1990 is a joy to watch and is always fun to see zombie staggering around while barely eating a scrap of flesh thanks to the work of the unruly MPAA. However, the true feeling of a good zombie movie is captured and Savini's creative flair is shown again in a new outlet, this time Directing and although not being the best of all dead movies, it still remains a great movie which is necessary to see and judge for yourself. It even includes a performance from Tony 'I'm a Hollywood Bigshot now' Todd. We even get to see a performance from the mysterious man who has appeared in other movies such as Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (in the role of Scott). Although not as good as the original (of course, no remake is better than the original, so why can't Gunn see that about remaking Dawn???) but this is still a riotously fun movie to watch and is great material for late night viewing. A creative joy to see such realistic zombies feed on so little flesh, but still, it's worth at least one or two watches. |