• Directed by Tom Savini
• Written by George A. Romero, based on the screenplay by John A. Russo and George A. Romero
• Starring
  • Tony Todd
  • Patricia Tallman
  • Tom Towles
  • McKee Anderson
  • William Butler
• Produced by John A. Russo
• Executive produced by Menahem Golan and George A. Romero

As I’ve mentioned a number of times around here (go and check if you don’t believe me), there are a few movies which, despite their eminently suitable subject matter, I will likely never attempt to review, and the original Night of the Living Dead is one such movie. The reasons are these: (1) as a landmark film, it’s already been subjected to so much scrutiny and criticism, overwhelming in both quantity and quality, that there is absolutely no commentary I could provide which would not be a pale shadow of what some smarter soul has already said; and (2) I think the movie is so obviously one of the greatest films ever made that my review could never be more than a hagiographic lapdance.

But the remake? Yeah, that’s fair game. And you’ll get a fair portion of my opinions on the original in my examination of the remake, as it’s almost impossible to consider the 1990 version as a standalone piece of cinema. Any attempt to review the latter version must necessarily deal with the question of why it’s so inferior to the original.

And that really is part of its problem — that the remake attempts to say or show something new within the framework of a rehash of one of the most groundbreaking independent movies of all time (the most successful such indie movie for a decade, until Halloween came along in 1978). In the two-plus decades after the original, scores of movies had drawn their inspiration from Romero’s original; they had imitated, subverted, toyed with, and winked at the conventions set up in 1968. For the remake to revisit the same burnt-over ground, expecting it to be fruitful, was almost naive.

Somebody buried him in a striped dress shirt? No wonder he’s mad!

In its outlines, the 1990 version follows closely in the footsteps of the original. Barbara (Patricia Tallman) and her brother Johnny (Bill Mosley) visit the remote graveyard where their mother was recently buried, with Johnny expressing his annoyance at the long drive by freeing his Inner Asshole. Their sibling squabble is interrupted by a stumbling, shambling figure who attacks them without provocation, leaving Johnny dead and Barbara without working transportation. Pursued by more than one corpselike figure, she runs wildly until she finds an isolated farmhouse, empty of any living soul.

Even here, in the setup, we can see that the self-awareness inherent in mounting this production would be the death of it. The very first line here — “They’re coming to get you, Barbara” — is the most memorable line from the opening of the original, thrown out at the very first as a Valentine to the fans who of course know the original by heart. With that kind of promise to pander proffered at the very beginning, how could this movie ever move beyond the movie to which it must knowingly refer in every scene? Even the divergence from the original to be found in the graveyard scene — the first shambling figure they see is actually a doddering mourner, with the first zombie instead attacking suddenly from off-camera — derives any impact it may have from its intentional divergences from the original. “See? See? Look, we’re doing it differently! See?” Whether by following in the original’s footsteps or straining against its apronstrings, the remake here guarantees that it can never really rise above being a “riff” on the original.

After encountering some zombies in the farmhouse, Barbara meets up with Ben (Tony Todd), whose truck runs out of gas on the house’s front step. Together they sweep the house clean of zombies and decide to hole up temporarily. Here is another instance of the remake hanging comfortably in the original’s shadow. Todd has always been an exceptional actor, and I certainly would never begrudge a dollar put in his pocket, but why, exactly, does he play the part of Ben? For one reason: because he is black. And why must he be black? Because Duane Jones, who played Ben in the original, was black. Never mind the fact that the original part was written without color and went to the best actor who auditioned for the role; intentional or not, Ben’s ethnicity added an inadvertent but powerful theme of racial conflict to the drama of the original, one of those “perfect storm” details which helped the 1968 version seize the imagination of its audience. Those racial issues had largely been put to bed by 1990 (or, at worst, were still nothing more than a tiny remnant of their former selves), and the part of Ben in the remake is written with no more racial specificity than in the original; why, then, is this particular character played by an African-American actor again? Because the original did. That’s all the reason there is, whether or not it’s reason enough. (Yes, I know, there would have been an outcry if the part of Ben had gone to another Caucasian actor, rounding out the lily-white cast; but in terms of story mechanics, the imitative casting seems more simply a slavish imitation of the original in a matter in which the imitation couldn’t possibly have the dramatic potential of the original.)

Tony Todd, sensitive man of action!

Opposite Ben, we have his nemesis, Harry Cooper. In the original, as played by Karl Hardman, Cooper was a rigid cog of middle-class America, right down to the white shirt and tie which were the uniform of suburban respectability. His conflict with Ben was in large part because his place in the authority structure had been lost with the apparent breakdown of order, and thus his standing as a middle-class white male was threatened; his insistence on his refuge of security in the basement, and his anger as others rejected his plan, stem largely from his need to assert his authority in the grand scheme of the unspoken American class system. By contrast, the Cooper of the remake, Tom Towles, is a much rougher and more physically imposing man, whose speech is peppered with insults like “yo-yo” and a constant hint of a Jersey accent. His hostility and his need to assert power over the others stems not nearly so much from his threatened social standing, and more from an inherent personality trait toward domination. Even the costuming choices of the remake undermine any class-related subtext, for the new Harry is only shown wearing a tuxedo, which is “special occasion” clothing; aside from James Bond and Bruce Wayne, no one wears a tux as their uniform of class. We never do find out why Harry and his wife (McKee Anderson) are gussied up, nor is it specifically important; but we are deprived of the visual cues of class which helped cement the original Harry’s social standing, and thus infuse his conflict with Ben with sociological importance, reinforcing themes of authority structures which are the heart of the subtext in the original. This time, Harry is not the beleaguered white male, desperately trying to hold onto the definitions of masculinity which matter to him in an authority structure which is succumbing to chaos; he’s simply a knuckle-scraping asshole.

The character who changes most between the two versions of the story, though, is Barbara. In the original, as played by Judith O’Dea, she reacts to the death of her brother and the zombie assault by degenerating into dazed near-catatonia, and ends up a bargaining chip in the power struggle between Ben and Harry. Romero has expressed regret several times over the years at how Barbara was written, and said that his ensuing strong female characters were meant largely as an apology. (To tell the truth, I never felt that there was any necessity for apology; in a movie so conscious of social roles, it seems natural that the character who had been raised by middle-class mores to be gentle and unassertive is the one least prepared to express much inner strength in the face of adversity on this scale.) The new Barbara, after a brief period of weakness which lasts until the arrival of Ben, hardens and becomes the most dependably practical member of the cast, eventually supplanting Ben as the de facto protagonist. Her assessment of the situation almost borders on detached objectivity, positioning her as being largely outside the interpersonal struggles of those trapped with her. And therein lies another problem.

“No! I don’t hunger after the flesh of the living — I just want a Twinkie!”

One of the beauties of the original is that, on top of being a tense thriller, it also offers depth to those audience members who choose to dig for it. I’ve blathered at length about the class conflicts in the movie, but a viewer without the critical equipment to construct such criticisms can still thrill to the horrific situation of being trapped by zombies in a house with strangers. The original did not make explicit one of the most fundamental observations one can have about the movie, and thus leaves to those audience members who realize it the thrill of discovery: That the zombie crisis would be easily surmountable if only the participants would cooperate instead of focusing their energies on who gets to wear the captain’s hat. This subtext is what elevates the movie above other movies with similar plot devices both before and after.

In the remake, though, even the subtext is dumbed down — not by removal, but by spelling it out. At least two characters point out forcefully that they would be able to escape if only Ben and Harry weren’t engaged in a competition to be Alpha Male. Bringing what had been an undercurrent to the forefront only makes it seem obvious and shallow, and leaves nothing under the surface for the more critically-minded viewer to discover.

All of the complaints above relate directly to the screenplay, which George Romero revamped from his original collaboration with John Russo. But director Tom Savini made his share of missteps, artistic and technical decisions which, while seemingly innocuous, sap the remake of impact. Because the newer version is just too well made.

“Hi. My name is Harry, and my hobbies include peeling bananas with my toes.”

The original was a piece of outsider cinema: shot on cheap, gritty black-and-white filmstock, made in an abandoned farmhouse without running water where cast and crew would camp out on their weekend shoots before returning to their day jobs Monday morning. All of those rough edges work in the movie’s favor: The primitive camera work harks back to cinema verite, the close quarters and stark lighting add claustrophobia to almost every scene, and the living dead are frightening simply by virtue of their being dead, not dead and creatively ugly.

In the remake, though, the house is an expansive and well-lit piece of real estate; the production is polished in every regard, extending itself to appear as Hollywood as it could; and the meticulously-realized zombie makeups are shown to their best effect. It’s as if Savini the director couldn’t stop being Savini the FX wizard, and thus made sure to light and present the zombie prosthetics work in the most flattering light possible — the upshot being that the entire production is so well-lit that it seems, in the words of an earlier review, more like “Mid-Afternoon of the Living Dead.” Even the darkness outside the house is so well lit that one could read a newspaper without difficulty at any spot around the farmhouse’s environs. The instinctive fear of the dark and the unknown has been replaced by a giddy fanboy “Look at me!”

And the ending… The remake simply has nothing to compare to the stark nihilism of the closing moments of the original. Barbara’s epigrammatic “We’re them, and they’re us,” seems threadbare and boilerplate, coming as it does in the company of the good ol’ boys who are cleaning up the county (and why is it that, no matter where a movie is set, the good ol’ boys always sound like Southerners?). There simply isn’t the suckerpunch that contributed in no small part to the almost obsessive devotion the original inspired as a perennial midnight movie.

“And I’m Barbara. I kick ass. The end.”

Now, here’s the caveat: I can only judge the remake in terms of comparison and contrast with the original. I cannot critique it on its own standalone merits. It may be a perfectly adequate horror movie, perhaps even superior. But because it demands to be considered by the standards established by the original, I have to judge it by those standards and find it wanting. There may be out there a critic who can approach this movie fresh, without a knowledge of the original, who may be able to assess its successes against the body of cinema at large instead of specifically against one of the greatest horror movies ever made. On the other hand, I’m not sure I’d trust the judgment of anyone whose knowledge of cinema did not include the original Night of the Living Dead.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 7
• breasts: 0
• male butts: 1
• explosions: 1
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 4
  • Tony Todd (Ben) is a frequent guest in the Star Trek universe, having appeared several times on TNG and DS9 as Worf’s brother Kurn, plus playing the adult Jake Sisko in the DS9 episode “The Visitor,” and “Alpha Hirogen” in the Voyager episode “Prey”
  • Patricia Tallman (Barbara) is also a regular Trek guest: she played “Security Officer” in the TNG episode “Power Play,” “Kiros” in the TNG episode “Starship Mine,” an uncreditd Romulan in the TNG episode “Timescape,” “Weapons Officer” in the DS9 episode “Way of the Warrior,” “Nurse Tagano” in the DS9 episode “The Muse,” and “Taresian Alien Woman” in the Voyager episode “Favorite Son”
  • Tom Towles (Harry) played “Hon’Tihl” in the DS9 episode “Dramatis Personae,” and “Dr. Vatm” in the Voyager episode “Rise”
  • Stacie Foster (”Doll’s Mom Zombie”) played “Lt. Bartel” in the TNG episode “Relics”