Night of the Living Dead 3D is Not as Good as the 1968 Classic Nor the 1990 Remake
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Night of the Living Dead 3D has interesting ideas and decent performances but can't escape its predecessors' shadows.
Written by James "Crypticpsych" Lasome
January 3, 2011
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Release: November 10, 2006 (US Limited), October 16, 2007 (DVD)
Directed by: Jeff Broadstreet
Written by: George A. Romero and John A. Russo (1968 screenplay), Robert Valding (current screenplay)
Starring:
Brianna Brown as Barb
Joshua DesRoches as Ben
Sid Haig as Gerald Tovar, Jr.
Greg Travis as Henry Cooper
Johanna Black as Hellie Cooper
At first, Night of the Living Dead 3D is a retelling of the original film. Barb (Brown) and her brother Johnny (Ken Ward) head out to a cemetery for their mother's burial. When they get there, they find the place deserted. Johnny sees some zombies near his car and goes to confront them only to get attacked, dive in his car, and abandon Barb. Barb runs off through the cemetery, ending up in Gerald "Junior" Tovar's (Haig) Mortuary. After Tovar chases her off, she ends up under siege from further zombies only to be saved by a man on a motorcycle, Ben (DesRoches). Together they head to Ben's friends' house (Henry and Hellie instead of Harry and Helen) to try and survive the zombie apocalypse.
Other than the presence of "Junior", that plot synopsis basically would cover the original 1968 classic as well. The zombie makeup is a step above that one though and more on par with the 1990 Savini remake, if not as gory. Where Night of the Living Dead 3D differs, though, is the
entire rest of the story. Gone is any semblance of a debate over�basement v. main floor. Gone is the antagonism between Ben and Harry Cooper. The story doesn't even stay in the Coopers' farm for the entire film! So, in actuality, it's more an "homage" to the original story than an actual "remake". This probably was what the movie was intended as given there is a scene where the Coopers are watching the original film.
What does the story have instead? For one, the final two-thirds of the movie seem to borrow a lot of tropes from slasher films. Two characters having sex in the barn are basically doomed from the start. The Coopers seen here, a far cry from the better family of the original, are actually pot farmers and paranoid conspiracy nuts with a stoner hired-hand named Owen. Characters have a minor tendency to do "I'll be right back"-level stupid things that lead to their demise from the mass "slasher", the zombie horde. The movie also follows the dialogue choices of modern remakes of Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street in that many lines are filled with profanity (and a very heavy "un-Romero" use of the word "zombies"). Beyond the slasher elements, there's also a VERY different, though interesting, explanation of the zombie invasion here.
Finally, there's the 3D. On the surface, the effect's decently done in red-blue 3D-style. There's a lot of depth in most of the shots so that there's a visual difference between foreground items, background items, and things in between. However, the transfer does have a tendency to get WAY too dark to the point where it's next-to-impossible to determine what's going on. Also, most of the stereotypical "things coming at you" shots don't work very well.
The acting in the movie is okay with Haig and Brown stealing the show. Every scene with Sid Haig's mortician is so good and so well-acted that the scenes without him pale in comparison. Brown, on the other hand, plays her Barb (yes, short for Barbara) in such a way that she's far stronger and proactive than the original performance of Judith O'Dea (as great as that one is). The rest of the cast acquit themselves quite well, the only exception being Adam Chambers' Owen, an unnecessary comic relief character.
Basically, if this film was not Night of the Living Dead anything, it would probably rate higher in my mind. As it is, it digs itself a huge hole from the title screen. A viewer can still find Night of the Living Dead 3D enjoyable, but they'll also find themselves involuntarily picking apart things the original did better. For instance, I'm sorry Joshua DesRoches, but Duane Jones mops the floor with you. The drug subplots, while possibly welcome in another film, feel awkward in a Night of the Living Dead remake. Finally, there's the movie's attempts to be "modern". In addition to the unnecessary profanity (which I have no problem with, it's just not "edgy" or "hip" to me), the movie also tries to introduce technology like cellphones. This wouldn't be a problem… if they didn't then use text messages for the original's "They're coming to get you, Barbara" moment, an almost unforgivable sacrilege considering how little of the original is in this outside of character names and the most basic of plot outlines.
Night of the Living Dead 3D is a movie that has a unique zombie backstory and some decent performances. Its problem is that it is forever linked with the classic movies it's remaking or paying tribute to and will always be a step behind them as a result. I get the feeling if it wasn't playing so heavily in Romero's or even Savini's worlds, it'd be a far better film than it is.
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