#163 -- Night of the Living Dead (2006)

Director: Jeff Broadstreet
Rating: 3/5

I think it's safe to say that every horror fan loves, or at least appreciates, the original Night movie. It was, to me, the original zombie movie. I know there were others before it, but none that made quite as much of an impact. It was a wonderful movie, and it will always be one of the greatest horror classics. So, of course, people feel the need to do it all over again. I've known about this remake for a while, but I didn't know that there was another in 1990 directed by Tom Savini. Apparently there will be another this year (or maybe it's already done, I'm not sure). Apparently no one's ever heard of the phrase, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Anyways, this one was on Fearnet On Demand. The description said something about it being better because it was filled with gratuitous nudity. I saw one set of tits, so that hardly qualifies as gratuitous. Even if it did, it wouldn't make it better than the original. Sid Haig is in this one, so that's good. He actually plays a big part in the new story line, which is kind of interesting. But it doesn't make up for the fact that the whole thing fails to live up to its name. They call it a re-imagining, which is just a way for them to say, "I remade this movie, but it's still original, guys, 'cause I put some new shit in it." It's still a remake, you just decided to fuck it up even more. Okay, so it does follow a woman named Barbara, but she's just annoying. She and her brother Johnny take a trip to the cemetery. In the original, I believe Barbara and Johnny were there to put flowers on their father's grave. In this one, they're at the cemetery for their aunt's funeral. When they get there, though, the place is deserted. They're attacked by zombies, of course, and Johnny drives off and leaves Barbara to fend for herself. She runs and finds herself at the mortuary, which is run by Mr. Tovar. After finding a shit ton of dead bodies inside, and being attacked by even more zombies, Mr. Tovar kicks Barbara out. She runs some more, and is picked up by a guy on a motorcycle who takes her to a farmhouse and to safety. The farmhouse is owned by Mr. Cooper, and they're not growing vegetables at this farm. This is an updated version of the movie, so of course Barbara ends up at a pot farm. The family at the house are against calling the cops because, of course, they'd find their stash. So instead, they just tell Barbara she's crazy and try to calm her down. That is until the zombies show up at the house. Three people are bitten, then Barbara and Ben (motorcycle boy) escape.

The interesting part of this one is the explanation of why the dead are returning. Mr. Tovar is a bit of a whack job. His father died two years ago, he brought it back to life and keeps him tied up in his house. He's been busy for the past two years, bringing bodies that were supposed to be cremated back to life. Apparently he's afraid of fire, and he just couldn't bring himself to burn them. He feels like he's giving them a second chance; letting them be "reborn." He acts like they're his children and he loves them. So he's creating zombies just because he likes zombies, it seems like. Of course, zombies don't have emotions, so they don't give a shit that he created them. That's kind of interesting, and I think it would have been good in a different movie, rather than one that was trying to live up to a classic title. Since they slapped the Night of the Living Dead title on it, and called it a re-imagining, it was doomed to be compared to the original--and not positively. People just don't seem to realize that, if they remake a great movie like this, it's just not going to live up to it. As a remake, it's a piece of shit, honestly. As a movie on its own, it's just okay. So, classic title or not, it's really not that great of a movie. The acting was pretty bad, except on Sid Haig's part. He is always enjoyable. I will say that the effects were pretty decent, but that's really all it had going for it. What I was most upset about was the use of the famous line from the original. Everyone remembers, "They're coming to get you, Barbara!" This time, though, it was used via text message. If that isn't lame enough, they made it seem like Johnny was just telling Barbara that he was on his way to pick her up. The text message said "Coming 4 U Barb." I'm really glad her cell phone got smashed. This one gets a 3 point rating because I liked the whole crazy mortician thing. Other than that, this is garbage. Oh, and it was released in 3D. So, there were all sorts of gimmicks going on here, and none of them worked. So, what's my advice to the viewers? Skip it. My advice to film makers? Come up with your own ideas, assholes. Just because you say it's a re-imagining, not a remake, doesn't change the fact that you're re-using someone else's movie. You're playing off of something that's already been done. Sure, everyone takes inspiration from other people. But we don't all flat out take their ideas. So just stop. Write your own movies, create your own characters, and stop feeding off of other peoples' creativity. Use your imagination. Be a fucking film maker, instead of a recycling bin.