Night of the Living Dead


"Whatever I lost, I lost a long time ago, and I do not plan on losing anything else. You can talk to me about losing it when you stop screaming at each other like a bunch of two-year-olds."    - Barbara


release year: 1990
genre: horror
viewing setting: home DVD 9/9/13

synopsis: The dead are coming back to life and eating the living, and a group of random people ends up in an old house where they try to survive.

impressions: What do you do when you've got a classic, if now a bit outdated, horror movie? Simple: you remake it for the 1990s! That's exactly what George Romero and Tom Savini set out to do here, in 1990. While the same basic plot and execution of the 1968 film were retained, Savini directed this time around, and there were plenty of new twists and turns. First and foremost, this Barbara was no weak, whimpering ditz.; this Barbara kicked ASS! She was superior to the 1968 Barbara in both mind and body. Even in her first scene, wherein she successfully fought off a zombie, one could tell that this was a competent and capable heroine. But...from there she went on to be one of the most useful zombie-fighters in the movie (or in any movie, for that matter.) Even Ben knew that Barbara could fight. She paid attention to everything, had key shotgun blasts when it counted, hammered boards in place while everyone else was arguing, came up with plan B when it was needed...what a great character. This is the sort of person you want in your group of survivors during a zombie apocalypse. Inventory of other cool things, listed in approximate order: Colonel Sanders zombie attacks...cheap Barbara up-the-skirt panty shot...zombie streaker...Uncle Regis takes a dive from the staircase...zombie gets run over and bent in half by truck...crowbar through forehead...poker through chest...Judy scaring a zombie away by screaming...enraged goober zombie...Cooper stealing the TV while everyone's fighting zombies...Judy goes goofy and loses all accumulated cool points...and the mightiest death of all, the final one (we can't spoil it for you, but let's just say that Barbara did the coolest thing of the whole movie.)

body count: 7 humans and 12 zombies, confirmed (this doesn't count 2 slain humans who later get slain again as zombies)

acting: Barbara was played by the actress Patricia Tallman, who as far as I can tell was never in anything else. Ben was played by Tony Todd, who's had many horror roles. Tom Towles did a great job as the very unlikeable, selfish Harry Cooper.

final word: Great remake, worth watching as a double feature with the original.

back to the main review page