Night of the Living Dead (1990)

I guess it’s fitting to do a review about a horror film the night before Halloween. So, I figured I’d review a classic. This is actually a remake of the original Night of the Living Dead (1968). It is director George A. Romero’s claim to fame. Tom Savini directed this version, but it was based upon the writing and story by both Romero and John A. Russo. There is nothing complicated about the premise of this movie, it helped to inspire a number of other zombie films.

This was the tagline that was used: “There IS a fate worse than death”. The casting for this film was excellent, and there are some hidden messages in the story if you read between the lines including racism and religion as well as morale values. The undead return to life through an accident, and start to crave the flesh of the living. This theme has been used a number of times over the years. The zombies in this one move rather slow, but they certainly creep up on you after a while.

The cast (aside from the zombies) deliver very convincing character types you find in modern day society. Tony Todd stars as Ben who was brilliant in his performance. He meets up with Patricia Tallman playing the role of Barbara who also delivers a wonderful performance as well. Some people might not know she was the Possessed Witch in the Sam Raimi movie Army of Darkness (1992).The setup starts off with Barbara finding her way from a graveyard to a white house in the countryside. Once she is there she discovers the absolute madness that follows. This was Katie Finneran’s first film appearance as Judy Rose her character Judy is the girlfriend of William Butler who plays the role of Tom. Tom Towles plays a snobby jerk named Harry Cooper. He was very convincing in the role. His wife was played by McKee Anderson as Helen Cooper. She constantly tries to reason with his as he is very demanding and forceful. Johnnie is played by Bill Mosley, David W. Butler plays Hondo, Zachary Mott is Bulldog, Pat Reese is The Mourner, William Cameron is The Newsman, Pat Logan is Uncle Rege, Berle Ellis is the Flaming Zombie, and Bill ‘Chilly Billy’ Cardille plays a T.V. Interviewer.

There have been a number of sequels in this series of films and an upcoming release starring Tony Todd is already in the works and in production titled Escape of the Living Dead (2009).  Perhaps it will be in limited release sometime next year. John A. Russo will be directing and he also wrote the screenplay.