Having watched The Night Of The Living Dead 1990 Remake, I can say it's flat out terrible.
Tom Savini... good effects man... Horrible director.
But it wasn't the bad direction that bothered me as much as the writing. It was absolutely meaningless. The original worked together perfectly. But the ending of the remake was awful, and the least of it's problems. You see, the original film had a simple ending with a great message. Also, it came across very well that the lack of working together is what doomed them.
The only epilogue in the ORIGINAL is that when the "posse" comes the next morning, they see Ben in the window. He was the sole survivor, but they shot him in the head assuming he was a zombie. OK, good. Irony well done. It was simple and powerful. With this film, there is No surprise, no drama, no fright and we're off to the start of what is a VERY unfulfilling film when all is said and done.
Technically incompetent, badly directed, no clear focus, a bad script, a loose re-working of points that were strong in the original, turned into an unfocused mess of points that fail to emerge coherently.
Barbara is the survivor, this time. She escapes and comes back for help. This is done VERY unconvincingly, first of all. I mean geez. In the beginning, she could hardly do anything. But then after spending time with people that annoyed her to no end she suddenly gets survival skills OUT OF NOWHERE.
She says she can walk right past them. So... at this point if she was in there with people she wasn't liking that were fighting and arguing, why doesn't she? She just got done screaming at everyone saying they were fighting like 2 year olds. Yet, she stays. This is ridiculous for the next reason: The ridiculous thing is that she DOES leave and DOES walk right past them.
Yes... AFTER everything falls apart, and AFTER everything has gone from bad to worse, when the horror of it all is getting bad when they are ALL out there, THEN she just runs out there and gets away.
....makes no sense. None. She could have done this at any time, but it feels like she didn't until it was "convenient" for the writers. And she had MUCH less trouble out there than Ben had for 2 minutes! WHAT???? So OK.... THEN...
After Ben and Harry had their shootout, Harry locks himself in the attic while Ben, with the good common sense is the one that finds himself in the basement. He sees the keys to the gas pump which they thought they had but failed, and laughs.
OK... that ending worked well enough. But then it gets very stupid.
Barbara comes back the next morning, and sees Zombie Ben coming from the basement, and he's shot. ..........WHAT???? Well, there goes the intelligent ending to the first film. It didn't bother me so much that they "changed" it. Rather it's because they failed to HAVE an intelligent ending because of what happened next.
Barbara then finds Harry that made everything fall apart. He's glad to see her and he's alive. Yes, the selfish, troublemaking guy you hated was the sole survivor. Barbara puts a bullet in HIS head.
uhh............ OK. What a stupid ending.
I mean... what are we supposed to learn from this? That if you're selfish and you can't work with the others, then you'll survive, but then the other survivor will come back and shoot you? What an incoherent mess of an ending. There's no moral. Just some "haha he got shot" ending. The ending went on way too long. In the end there was no strong moral. No point.
Where's the irony? Where's the message? Where's the point? It's the least of the film's problems. Incompetent directing, a general disregard, and an "let's get through it" mentality, a sloppy lack of attention to detail of character development, sloppy story writing, plus more.
Rather just a rehashed concept from a superior film. These, classic characters, re-imagined as flat, uninspired characters who "go through the motions" and play their cardboard parts until the plot ends and the confused multiple mixed "messages" begin and last for 5 minutes more than original ever needed to make one, solid point. A lingering, confused ending with no real point is our reward for a full runtime of a shlocky and incompetent film based on a masterpiece of cinema. Why even release a film as bad as this?
There was no real mystery. Just a mindless action film with an ending that was tacked on. Nothing was horrific, and the film even sorta hits you over the head with "Well, you know what's going to happen. So here's some zombies." The intelligent commentary, all gone. Replaced with points that make no sense.
OK, it's fine that the timid, catatonic girl from the first one, took charge of her situation for once. But they made her TOO much into "G.I Jane" in this remake. It went too far, was heavy handed and everything. It was also poorly pulled off. I would have loved the idea if it was done right.
Oh what? Suddenly she gets a pair of pants instead of a long skirt, a gun, and suddenly she's Sigorney Weaver in Aliens?! If it had looked convincing or felt convincing, I would have got behind it. But it didn't. I could get behind nothing in the film.
It's not that the film couldn't have been remade, but if it was remade by someone who understood the concept and by a competent director and smart writing, it could have succeeded. The film fails largely due to the lack of these things.
And by that, I mean it REALLY fails. Nothing is done well in this film.
Tom Savini... good effects man... Horrible director.
But it wasn't the bad direction that bothered me as much as the writing. It was absolutely meaningless. The original worked together perfectly. But the ending of the remake was awful, and the least of it's problems. You see, the original film had a simple ending with a great message. Also, it came across very well that the lack of working together is what doomed them.
The only epilogue in the ORIGINAL is that when the "posse" comes the next morning, they see Ben in the window. He was the sole survivor, but they shot him in the head assuming he was a zombie. OK, good. Irony well done. It was simple and powerful. With this film, there is No surprise, no drama, no fright and we're off to the start of what is a VERY unfulfilling film when all is said and done.
Technically incompetent, badly directed, no clear focus, a bad script, a loose re-working of points that were strong in the original, turned into an unfocused mess of points that fail to emerge coherently.
Barbara is the survivor, this time. She escapes and comes back for help. This is done VERY unconvincingly, first of all. I mean geez. In the beginning, she could hardly do anything. But then after spending time with people that annoyed her to no end she suddenly gets survival skills OUT OF NOWHERE.
She says she can walk right past them. So... at this point if she was in there with people she wasn't liking that were fighting and arguing, why doesn't she? She just got done screaming at everyone saying they were fighting like 2 year olds. Yet, she stays. This is ridiculous for the next reason: The ridiculous thing is that she DOES leave and DOES walk right past them.
Yes... AFTER everything falls apart, and AFTER everything has gone from bad to worse, when the horror of it all is getting bad when they are ALL out there, THEN she just runs out there and gets away.
....makes no sense. None. She could have done this at any time, but it feels like she didn't until it was "convenient" for the writers. And she had MUCH less trouble out there than Ben had for 2 minutes! WHAT???? So OK.... THEN...
After Ben and Harry had their shootout, Harry locks himself in the attic while Ben, with the good common sense is the one that finds himself in the basement. He sees the keys to the gas pump which they thought they had but failed, and laughs.
OK... that ending worked well enough. But then it gets very stupid.
Barbara comes back the next morning, and sees Zombie Ben coming from the basement, and he's shot. ..........WHAT???? Well, there goes the intelligent ending to the first film. It didn't bother me so much that they "changed" it. Rather it's because they failed to HAVE an intelligent ending because of what happened next.
Barbara then finds Harry that made everything fall apart. He's glad to see her and he's alive. Yes, the selfish, troublemaking guy you hated was the sole survivor. Barbara puts a bullet in HIS head.
uhh............ OK. What a stupid ending.
I mean... what are we supposed to learn from this? That if you're selfish and you can't work with the others, then you'll survive, but then the other survivor will come back and shoot you? What an incoherent mess of an ending. There's no moral. Just some "haha he got shot" ending. The ending went on way too long. In the end there was no strong moral. No point.
Where's the irony? Where's the message? Where's the point? It's the least of the film's problems. Incompetent directing, a general disregard, and an "let's get through it" mentality, a sloppy lack of attention to detail of character development, sloppy story writing, plus more.
Rather just a rehashed concept from a superior film. These, classic characters, re-imagined as flat, uninspired characters who "go through the motions" and play their cardboard parts until the plot ends and the confused multiple mixed "messages" begin and last for 5 minutes more than original ever needed to make one, solid point. A lingering, confused ending with no real point is our reward for a full runtime of a shlocky and incompetent film based on a masterpiece of cinema. Why even release a film as bad as this?
There was no real mystery. Just a mindless action film with an ending that was tacked on. Nothing was horrific, and the film even sorta hits you over the head with "Well, you know what's going to happen. So here's some zombies." The intelligent commentary, all gone. Replaced with points that make no sense.
OK, it's fine that the timid, catatonic girl from the first one, took charge of her situation for once. But they made her TOO much into "G.I Jane" in this remake. It went too far, was heavy handed and everything. It was also poorly pulled off. I would have loved the idea if it was done right.
Oh what? Suddenly she gets a pair of pants instead of a long skirt, a gun, and suddenly she's Sigorney Weaver in Aliens?! If it had looked convincing or felt convincing, I would have got behind it. But it didn't. I could get behind nothing in the film.
It's not that the film couldn't have been remade, but if it was remade by someone who understood the concept and by a competent director and smart writing, it could have succeeded. The film fails largely due to the lack of these things.
And by that, I mean it REALLY fails. Nothing is done well in this film.
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