NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1990)
A review in the public domain
by The Phantom
(baumgart@esquire.dpw.com)
George A. Romero may have more of a one-track mind than than do the zombies that star in his most famous films. Ever since the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, more than 22 years ago, Romero has strayed very little from his very successful formula. Over the course of two sequels, and now a remake, Romero knows what works, and he knows what sells. But perhaps it's time that he and Tom Savini (creature FX and makeup whiz and the director of the remake) move on.
The Phantom isn't quite sure what motivated Romero and Savini to work on a remake of their classic horror film; certainly there have been sequels -- official and unofficial -- and homages galore since the debut of the original NIGHT. They themselves effectively updated the tale with DAWN OF THE DEAD in 1979, and with DAY OF THE DEAD they closed out the series on an intellectual note (though to be fair, there was at least as much cannibalism as intellectualism in DAY OF THE DEAD). In addition to the two official sequels, there have been countless variations on the same theme, including the Sam Raimi's excellent EVIL DEAD series and the horror/comedy RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD. And of course there have been endless Italian zombie films -- most of them bad, some of them (like Lucio Fulci's ZOMBIE) good, and all of them dubbed. So why another LIVING DEAD film? And why a remake of the original, instead of at least attempting a new twist on an old theme? The Phantom isn't sure, though he certainly sympathizes with one possible motivation -- he, too, has rent to pay. You don't have to be a studio executive to realize that there's a guaranteed audience for anything with "Living Dead" in the title, and that the audience for such a film probably doubles if the name "Romero" appears on the marquee. And although it might be interesting to find a new angle on an age-old theme, there's nothing inherently wrong with remakes. In fact, some of the best horror films of recent times have been remakes (including THE FLY, INASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, and THE THING), while some of the worst have been sequels (including all of the HALLOWEEN and TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and arguably half of the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET films), all of which tried and failed to find a new way to recapture the success of their predecessors.
Except that the remake of NIGHT isn't so much a remake as a rehash; it's just a colorless colorization of the original. While films like THE FLY and THE THING effectively updated their respective tales, Romero's remake is sort of like the Ted Turner approach to filmmaking -- take an old classic, muck around with it a little, put it in a shiny new box, and voila! New product! So in a sense, the remake of NIGHT is really nothing more than a re-release, though with a few new scenes and without a few old ones. Other than that, the plot is exactly the same, the setting is almost exactly the same, the characters are almost exactly the same (with one notable exception -- Barbara -- to whom the Phantom will soon turn his attention) and even the zombies are almost exactly the same.
What isn't the same, of course, are the expectations of the audience. While a film about a small group of people under siege by hundreds of zombies lusting for human flesh was startling, disquieting, and shocking in the late sixties, it is -- perhaps sadly -- somewhat old hat now. These days, if one wants to explore such shopworn themes, one must generally go the serious, high-tech, monster gore route. Cronenberg did it with THE FLY (though it would have been a fine film -- horror or otherwise -- even without all the gore); Carpenter did it with THE THING. It was even done with THE BLOB, though with considerably less success (though the Phantom will always count the scene where one of the hapless townfolk gets sucked down a kitchen drain as one of his all-time favorites).
Yet Romero and Savini are remarkably restrained throughout NIGHT; in fact, the Phantom believes that the original may even be a little gorier. So without gore, what have we left? Well, there's Tom Savini's adept direction -- though he is certainly no Cronenberg or Raimi, Savini proves that he can sustain suspense and set up enough spooky scenes to make up for the long sequences that more or less fall flat. But although the right scenes are suspenseful in the right places, Savini seems to have a better feel for the obvious gross-out than he does for more subtle scenes of terror (not surprising, considering how he got his start in film). For example, the many scenes of zombie hands breaking through boarded up windows are still scary, and the scenes' inherent visual contradictions (the everyday ordinariness of a living room intruded upon by walking corpses) are as disquieting as ever. But Savini doesn't seem to have Romero's flair for the subtle touches that are all the more effective because they are not show-stopping gross-outs. In an early scene, Savini plays the camera on and around an obese zombie, killed and left in the living room by Barbara when she first enters the house (a change from the original screenplay). He even attempts a Raimi-esque scene with the zombie's severed hand, and that scene works in a bizarre, tension-relieving way, but what's the point if the rest of the film is going to be such a slavish copy of the original? Raimi succeeded with just this kind of over-the-top horror, with gratuitous gross-outs galore, because the images and tension never stopped. But NIGHT shifts uncomfortably back and forth between standard gross-out horror and the kind of claustrophobic terror that was the hallmark of the original while Savini doesn't seem to be able to decide how he wants to play things.
Romero's script, on the other hand, doesn't help matters. While the original NIGHT will never be confused with Hamlet, the amateurish script fit with the general low-budget mood of the film, and at least it never made us wince. But together with the generally awful acting, it's difficult to get through the remake without either laughing or yawning. The black protagonist Ben seems more or less a carbon copy of the original Ben, and Romero does a reasonable job of giving "the voice of reason" interesting things to pontificate on. But "the selfish side of ourselves", Harry Cooper, is simply out of control. Cooper is stuck doing and saying patently ridiculous things, and the actor who portrays him appears to be trying out for a part in a David Mamet play. The Phantom fully expected Cooper to start frothing at the mouth and munching on the furniture -- it is a scenery-chewing performance from beginning to end. Ben responds in kind, and many too many scenes play like outtakes from a particularly inept production of "Raisun in the Sun".
Finally, there's Barbara, who represents the biggest departure from the original film. Phans may remember that the character was a traumatized young woman who we first meet as she visits her mother's grave while her brother relentlessly teases her about the zombies who "are coming to get you, Bar-bar-a!" But in the original NIGHT, Barbara is barely able to cope once she arrives at the house, and she ends up being little more than a sexist hindrance to Ben and Tom as they try to reinforce the house and save everyone from the zombies.
But horror is in its post-ALIENS period now, and hysterical female characters just don't cut it anymore. So Romero has updated Barbara and turned her into a Ripley clone, complete with assault rifle and undershirt. It's not clear to the Phantom why the 90's Ripley character, tricked out in lingerie and combat boots is any less sexist than the traditional hysterical female character who has starred in horror films since the 50's. In some ways, it seems like a real step backward from the nearly three dimensional female characters who spent all their time saving their boyfriends and killing Jason (and his clones) in the 80's.
In any case, this politically correct touch leaves the script unbalanced, since now both she and Ben are ready to save everyone else, losing in the process one of the few ironic touches of the original film. If "the voice of reason" isn't going to win -- and then get killed by the gun-toting yahoos who mistake him for a zombie -- what's the point? Romero seems concerned about this as well, and at one point Barbara is, in fact, forced to say, "We're them. And they're us." But she could only believe this because she loses her glasses near the beginning of the film; for the audience, the line is just another laugher. Instead, the message of the film is nearly Rambo-esque (ALIENS was, after all, nothing but an updated war film); bizarrely, this runs directly counter to the pacifist tendencies of the original (though the Phantom realizes that any film that features cannibalism, walking corpses, and matricide can't be pacifistic in the strictest sense of the word).
The Phantom was also saddened to see that some of the classic horror scenes from the original are either missing or changed for the worse. For example, Savini implies, but never shows us, the zombies feasting on the recently dead. And one of the most famous scenes in horror film history, that of the little girl zombie killing her mother with a garden spade has been turned into a kind of "in" joke, a "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" for phans of the original. Had Romero and Savini intended this NIGHT to be a spoof (as Raimi intended EVIL DEAD 2 to be a spoof of his own horror classic), some of the changes might have been fun -- at least for horror phans who were familiar with the original -- but as it is the changes feel awkward in a film that is otherwise so slavish a copy of the original. (There are other "in" jokes throughout the new NIGHT, including a brief cameo by Romero himself, and in fact the film really does play better for true horror phans than it does for the casual viewer).
Now, lest this review sound too negative, the Phantom should hasten to point out that while the new NIGHT is nothing special, neither is it outright unbearable or disappointing. But that said, there seems little reason to see it, especially when the original is available (even in a hideous colorized version!) for a buck from your local Blockbusters. Hard core horror phans, biding their time until GRAVEYARD SHIFT, CHILD'S PLAY II, and MISERY open in a few weeks, might want to take a look, if only to satisfy their curiousity, or so that they could continue to say that they've seen everything by Romero, a true horror film legend.
But everyone else would probably be better off with the more atmospheric, and certainly more original, original. Perhaps if the box office for NIGHT is lower than expected, Romero and Savini will get back into the sequel-making business and produce new LIVING DEAD tales (though the Phantom should note that he retains the copyrights on the titles "Twilight of the Dead", "Evening of the Dead", and "Tea Time of the Dead"; should Messrs. Romero and Savini wish to use any of these titles, they are advised to contact the Phantom's attorney to work out all the gory details).
: The Phantom
: baumgart@esquire.dpw.com
: {cmcl2,uunet}!esquire!baumgart
.
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