Hey, folks. Jim here! I usually do Book reviews and Pokemon content for the site but today, I’m tackling a movie we were given a while back to look over. (Sorry, Conner!) This would have been a perfect film to dissect closer to the Halloween season, but with so much Geekery going on around that time of the year, things get pushed back and, before ya know it, it’s New Years. Oops.
Still. Kind of fitting to drag this bag of bones out of post-mortem retirement and let it roam around again. Is it something that’s been snacking on our brains since viewing it? Or has it been buried by the sands of time and forgotten? Read on to find out!
As per, we’re going to tackle this in three parts: Story, Acting, and Overall.
Story 9.5/10
While not a shot-for-shot remake of the Original Romero film, it keeps the spirit of that movie alive and that’s primarily what earns such high marks, here.
I’m a zombie nut and Night of the Living Dead was, essentially, the real progenitor of the genre. You can go back further, of course – films like White Zombie come to mind. The problem with doing that is that we then have to acknowledge that before Romero, zombies were… well. Kinda racist. Generally portrayed as creations of sinister witch doctors from the Caribbean, infused with dark magic and made not only to mock God and the tender sensibilities of our protagonist… but to do menial plantation work without complaint or any pesky worries over things like human rights.
I’m oversimplifying, here. Obviously. But that’s the general lay of the land. Moreover, it’s why Night of the Living Dead was such a watershed moment. Not only was it the story that removed magic and mysticism from the zombie narrative, replacing it instead with science and radiation and stuff from outer space! Perfect for the 60s. Not only that but, despite starting out with Barbara and Johnny, our main character is Ben, who’s African American! At the time this was pretty revolutionary and represented
progressive values in a way that not only put past cinema missteps (Like the aforementioned White Zombie) in the rearview mirror, but put diverse representation in the foreground without being even remotely heavy-handed or on the nose. There’s an allegory here… but it’s a GOOD story so you could be forgiven for not noticing it.
There are plenty of synopsis of the original Night of the Living Dead around and I kind of doubt you’re reading this if you’re not familiar with the source material. But, let’s do a quick primer of the film’s set up for those who’re unfamiliar; Johnny and Barbara are driving out to their Father’s grave upon the insistence of their Mom who’s not there to join them. It’s a three-hour ride each way, they got a late start and so they’re both pretty irritable. Barbara admits to getting the creeps in this lonely cemetery and Johnny uses this opportunity to freak her out by droning in a ghoulish voice “They’re coming to get you Barbara!”
Only, he’s the one who gets got. Barbara escapes to a nearby house that has a grisly, partially eaten person upstairs and so she almost entirely shuts down. Ben arrives in a utility truck he had to commandeer to escape from a horde of murdering, flesh-munching savages and immediately sets about trying to make the house safe to hang out in until this all blows over.
The house has its own gas pump, but it’s locked up so he also tries to find the key so that he can juice up the truck and get them out of there.
Zombies show up, drawn by the activity. Ben finds out that they hate fire and they die upon shooting them in the head. Good to know! Less useful as more and more of them show up over time and all he can do is board up windows and doors.
Turns out that there are also five people in the cellar. Mr. and Mrs. Cooper and their injured daughter (She got bitten by some lunatic!) as well as a completely unrelated younger couple. While Mr. Cooper insists that they should all be hiding down in the cellar, Ben would rather enact his plan of getting out using the gas pump and the truck.
And that’s all you’re going to get. If you’ve seen the original, you know how this ends and if you haven’t… well. I don’t want to ruin it for you!
A couple of things are added to this to separate it from the original and they’re mostly additional moments of gore. There’s a little length added to the last scene to really drive it home as well, but other than that? Pretty faithful to the original.
Acting 8/10
So, the thing that immediately drew me to this was not only my love for the original but the fact that both Dule Hill and James Roday Rodriguez are voices in this movie. If those names sound at all familiar, you might know them both from Psych! Burton Guster and Shawn Spencer, respectively! I love that show, love their chemistry together, and wondered how that would play out in a completely different setting.
Dule Hill voices Ben and James Roday Rodriguez voices Tom, the younger guy that’s been holed up in the cellar. They get, essentially, one scene where it’s just them and it doesn’t go well. The acting is great! But pour one out for Tom and… what’s-her-name. His Girlfriend. (Yes, Judy is just as one-note in this movie as she was in the original.)
The voice acting across the board is actually pretty good! Katharine Isabelle also does a good job at voicing Barbara who has to go from a competent if harried sounding person into someone who’s completely off the planet by fifteen minutes into the movie. Josh Duhamel does an equally great job with Harry Cooper, the cellar-obsessed old guy who almost locks Ben out of the house. (The scene where he gets his comeuppance for that is cathartic.)
All in all, solid.
Overall 6.5/10
And here’s my issue with this movie. Primarily, the background art is stunning. The character art and animation is flat and jerky. This works in some animated productions but for something like this, I would have liked to see something with a little more fluidity and depth. Imagine Archer with less intricate line work and you have something of an idea. There’s a big variance, scene to scene as well. Some seem to run smoother than others. I even wondered if it was an issue with my Blu-Ray player and so checked out clips online through various sources and it was the same across the board.
Which is a bummer. I wanted to unambiguously love this movie, but it wasn’t to be. I’m not the kind of person to hinge anything solely on the way it looks – I’m not arrogant enough to assume my taste is “Good” without question. Differences of opinion in terms of art direction is the kind of thing I can usually roll with, but when it’s to the point where I assume I’m having technical issues? That’s a little much. And it lets down an otherwise thoroughly enjoyable film.
Conner’s Jim’s Final Thoughts
Still! If you’re a fan of the original, you should check this iteration of it out. It’s, as I said above, enjoyable in its own way. Also, if you like the work of Dule Hill and James Roday Rodriguez, it’s a really cool thing to have in your collection!
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