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[This review is of the 2025 Director’s Cut.]
Special makeup effects artist Tom Savini directs this early ’90s remake of George Romero’s seminal Night of the Living Dead. Tony Todd and Patricia Tallman lead the ensemble cast with a script that is largely faithful to the original film, at least until it’s final minutes. After an inexplicable phenomenon brings the dead back to life, Tallman flees a grave yard overrun by brain-seeking zombies and finds refuge at a remote farmhouse. While she mourns the death of her brother (Bill Moseley) at the hands of the one of the ghouls, Todd pulls up in a truck running on fumes and shelters with her. As they brace for the hordes of zombies slowly moving toward the house, they discover other humans hiding in the basement who present dangers of their own.
The first full hour of this remake is deadly dull, with little more to hold our attention than a few gloomy soliloquys pattered off by Tony Todd, who in better circumstances is a great actor. Tallman’s character is mute from shock for such a long time, one wonders why she’s even in the movie at all. She finally becomes more interesting once she picks up a shotgun and decides to embrace her inner Rambo. William Butler and Katie Finneran are likeable in their small roles, but the script gives the lion’s share of screen time to the most insufferable character — a paranoid man played by Tom Towles who argues with everyone throughout the last half of the movie. It’s one thing for a character to serve a narrative purpose, but Towles’ character is so awful, he doesn’t just make the other characters hate him. He makes the audience hate the movie.
The final half hour contains most of the film’s action and gore, though to be honest, I expected so much more in both departments. Why remake Night of the Living Dead if not to take advantage of a bigger budget and advancements in technology? With Savini at the helm, I thought this film would be filled to the brim with spectacular gore and special effects, but it’s not. There’s one big pyrotechnic event, and the vast majority of the zombies die by a mere bullet to the head. Almost any other Savini film has more and better effects work.
The ending of the film strays from the original, and that’s probably a good idea if only to distinguish itself. But the ending left me perplexed with what it was trying to say. Whereas Romero’s original buttoned itself up with a striking insinuation of social commentary that made it worthy of academic study, Savini’s remake ends less confidently. All in all, it’s a deeply underwhelming experience.
With McKee Anderson, Heather Mazur, and a wretched, grating, synthesized score by Paul McCollough.