Review

It might have been the result of a space probe returning to Earth and giving off high amounts of radiation, it might have been divine retribution, or it could simply be pollution, but whatever the cause, the dead are re-animating and trying to devour the living. Barbara flees a ghoul, neither Romero nor Russo refer to the walking dead as "zombies", that killed her brother Johnny and winds up at an abandoned farmhouse. Joining her for a night of ghoulish pleasure is the can-do Ben, the coward Harry Cooper, his wife Helen, and young couple Tom and Judy. Almost forgot, the Cooper's daughter Karen is down in the basement slowly succumbing to the virus and eyeing up garden trowels with delight.

As the number of ghouls grows outside the farmhouse, various plans are hatched which pretty much lead to the deaths of Tom and Judy. Ben simply can't win a trick all night and his bickering with Harry Cooper threatens all their lives. On the bright side Ben gets to kill Harry... twice! Did I even need to go through the plot of this one? Didn't think so. Russo adds 15 odd minutes of additional footage that doesn't really help our appreciation of a Romero classic.

For no apparent reason, John Russo decided he could improve on Romero's original vision of Night of the Living Dead thirty odd years after the seminal horror movie was originally unleashed on an unsuspecting public. Russo added some additional footage, which really only breaks up the pace and tension of the original, remastered Romero's footage, and for no apparent reason added a new soundtrack heavily infused with somebody's kid brother on the keyboards. In short, Russo makes a complete hash of things and ruins a perfectly good movie with tinkering.

"Well, if you had a gun, shoot 'em in the head. If you didn't, get a torch and burn 'em, they go up pretty easy. Beat 'em or burn 'em." - Sheriff McClelland

Russo adds a completely new introduction to the movie that doesn't make any sense other than providing a background story for the first ghoul in the cemetery and a really weird religious sidetrack that eventually goes nowhere. Now I'm all for equal opportunity and all but do we really need a dead ghoul getting some background to flesh out his character and motivations? The ghoul is a re-animated dead person who has a hankering for human flesh, that's all she wrote, that's all the background we need. Similarly, what was the point of the whole religious side track we took? So the Priest is somehow immune to the virus does this lead to any new-found understanding of Romero's original movie? Does it take the new version into undiscovered territory? Does it actually do anything other than extend the movie's running time? The new introduction and concluding scenes do nothing overall for Night of the Living Dead besides standing out like dog balls in terms of clearly having been shot at a different time to the rest of the film. Even worse, we lose most of the excellent introduction to Romero's original version. If thinking of diving into the 30th Anniversary edition because of the new footage then don't bother as you are not going to get anything cool or any enhancement of the 1969 original. If anything, the 30th Anniversary edition pretty much destroys the impact that Romero had achieved with his version, and you are pretty much left with a "B" grader to view.

The big question is, what the hell is the point of this re-release besides making a few bucks?

"They're coming to get you, Barbara, there's one of them now!" - Johnny

The remastering was appreciated however. The original scenes have never looked so good. Picture wise everything is crisp, clear, and that grainy texture Romero used to make his original vision almost feel like a documentary has been removed. Whether or not the grainy look is crucial to the movie is up to the individual to decide. I wasn't opposed to its removal as the documentary nature is captured via the radio and television the besieged characters use to try and find out what's going down around them. Hint, if ever isolated in a farmhouse by marauding ghouls, look out the window to see what's happening and note when you shot them in the head the old adage, "kill the brain, and you kill the ghoul", still holds true.

"Now get the hell down in the cellar. You can be the boss down there, but I'm boss up here!" - Ben

My DVD cover could breathlessly inform me that Russo's new improved movie had "over 15 minutes of new footage!". Actually, whoever was writing the copy for the cover of the DVD from Anchor Bay was so excited that he repeated the news three times. Just in case you didn't know, we get over 15 minutes of new footage! Did I mention the extra 15 minutes of new footage! Note how irritating that can be after a while. What our excitable copy writer failed to point out was the original footage that got jettisoned from the 30th Anniversary. While watching various scenes I couldn't help but notice frames had been sliced out and whole sections had gone AWOL from Romero's version. This naturally leads to some resentment amongst those of us familiar with the classic and overall a hampered pace and whole swathes of tension being lost.

"Don't you know what's goin' on out there? This is no Sunday School picnic!" - Ben

If you are familiar with the original version of Night of the Living Dead then you are not going to need to grab a copy of the 30th Anniversary edition in the same way as you might have rushed to get your hands on Tom Savini's 1990 remake. There's nothing really new to see in the 30th Anniversary edition and it can pretty much be written off as one of those unnecessary exercises in filmmaking you run across from time to time to your detriment.

"Good shot! OK, he's dead; let's go get 'im. That's another one for the fire." - Sheriff McClelland

Since I've already gone through the acting on display in my review of the original movie there's not much point in rehashing it here. A couple of additional actors make complete geese of themselves in Russo's messed up version.

"We may not enjoy living together, but dying together isn't going to solve anything." - Helen Cooper

Before you ask that would be a big no on the T&A; even thirty years later no one is getting down and dirty in the face of the ghoul horde. Come to think of it, even the nude ghoul has been removed from the 30th Anniversary edition

"No. Those creatures were demons, creatures of Satan inhabiting the bodies of our dead. And the demons are still loose in this world, and the dead must be spiked." - Reverend John Hicks

Whoever handed in the score, for some reason I think it's Bill Hinzman ever though I can't find a credit, would have been better off claiming the dog ate it. I kind of think one of the requirements of a score composer is that he or she actually watches the film they are writing the music for. Clearly the composer here was thinking of some other flick, as sure as hell it couldn't have been this one.

I actually quite enjoyed the bits and pieces Romero directed that made up about 90% of this "re-envisioning". Russo's additional scenes sucked to be honest and did nothing to make my return journey into the "dead universe" any more enjoyable or informative. We are left with a disjointed movie that loses all the impact and tension of the original. Throw another DVD on the fire was my call to be honest, and by heck I usually enjoy a good zombie shake down.

I watched the region 4 release by Force Video (www.forcevideo.com.au) and must say that besides the main feature that I don't think anyone is going to enjoy, there's a pretty good package going down. You get the original movie, just to show how much the 30th Anniversary versions sucks in comparison, a featurette on the making of the sucky version, the trailer, and a whole bunch of other stuff that no one ever bothers watching. All crammed on a single disc as well.

Don't bother, you will only hate yourself the morning after watching the 30th Anniversary version of Night of the Living Dead. Go grab the original if in the mood to once again see Ben go up against the living dead, Harry Cooper, and the authorities as it turns out. The new version lacks the power and impact of the original and I pretty much announced it dead on arrival as the closing credits rolled. Unfortunately it's quite likely to drag itself out of its grave and appear on late night TV as some stage; now there's a real living death.