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Night of the Living Dead
Directed by	Tom Savini
Produced by	Declan Baldwin Christine Forrest
Written by	Screenplay: George A. Romero 1968 Screenplay: George A. Romero John A. Russo
Starring	Tony Todd Patricia Tallman Tom Towles McKee Anderson
Music by	Paul McCollough
Distributed by	21st Century Film Corporation Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	October 19, 1990
Running time	92 min.
Language	English
Budget	$4,200,000

Night of the Living Dead is a horror film released in 1990. It is a remake of George A. Romero's 1968 film of the same name and was directed by Tom Savini. Romero rewrote the original 1968 screenplay that he had co-authored with John A. Russo.

Another remake would follow in 2006, titled Night of the Living Dead 3-D; however, none of the original cast or crew had anything to do with it.

Initial reaction to this remake was largely negative. Roger Ebert awarded the film a mere one star out of a possible four stars. Leonard Maltin assigned it two out of four stars. Recent criticism has been more appreciative, and the film currently holds a 70% "fresh" approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Plot

The movie begins with two siblings Johnny and Barbara arguing in the car as they drive to the cemetery to visit their mother's grave. As they arrive there, Johnny begins to tease Barbara about her fear of graveyards. During which, a disoriented and muddy man with a cut on his forehead bumps into Barbara only saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry". Johnny seeing the man may be hurt asks if he's alright, just as he asks an undead man comes and attacks Barbara. Johnny comes to her defense, during the struggle he trips over his shoe, falls and smashes his head on a gravestone. Barbara frantically runs to the car, only to be trapped without keys and surrounded by the original zombie and a freshly dead man. Barbara releases the brakes and rolls downhill into a tree, quickly gets and runs through the woods and finds the farmhouse. As she frantically looks for help, she finds the door unlocked and the farmhouse deserted.

She begins walk through the house as she does she looks up and sees blood leaking from the top of the staircase. She soon sees a severed hand which falls and onto her, causing her to fall back in terror. While on the ground an obese zombie falls from the stairs, and almost lands on Barbara. Barbara then runs into the kitchen only to find another zombie. Then, a car arrives at the house, the driver, Ben (Tony Todd) wants to have protection from the zombies. He and Barbara finally clear the house of the zombies and begin to barricade the house. While wandering the house for wood, Ben hears Barbara scream and goes to her aid. They find Harry Cooper, his wife, and daughter and two teenagers Tom Laundry and his girlfriend Judy Rose had been hiding in the cellar in fear of the undead. Soon an argument carries on with Harry and Ben on what to do now. Harry wants the group to barricade themselves in the cellar, but Ben argues that they would effectively be trapping themselves. Ben carries the argument, and the group cooperates to reinforce the main part of the house.

Ben devises a plan to escape using the truck involving all of the men in the house. Harry, however, refuses to help and mostly stays inside the cellar refusing to help, despite his wife's pleas. Ben's plan is to reload the truck's tank with gas and go away from the house, and hopefully find help. Although the gas is one mile from the house, but Tom's uncle also owns the station, so he knows his way. Thanks to Helen, Harry's wife, they have the apparent key to unlock the pumps.

As night sets in, continue barricading the doors and windows with any wood they can find. While upstairs, Tom and Ben find a TV, and soon see a report from the news on the living-dead situation, whom are also confused about the true cause of the situation and how its spread. After fighting off a few zombies, things go horribly wrong when Ben accidentally falls off the truck. Tom continues desperately to tell Judy he's fallen, but she can't hear. When they arrive, tells her that Ben's fallen and suggest they go back for him. But before that, Tom discovers the key Helen gave them wasn't the one to the pump.

In an act of desperation, Tom fires his gun at the gas pump and unintentionally causing it to explode, killing him and Judy instantly. Ben watches in horror of what's happened and that zombies are eating the remains of what's left of Judy and Tom. Barbara sends Harry and Helen back into the cellar, however Harry begins to fight her for the gun. Unknown to the both of them, Sarah (Harry and Helen's daughter) has died and reanimates as a zombie, biting Helen in the neck.

Ben, miraculously, fights his way through the groups of zombies and eventually gets back inside the farmhouse to help Barbara. Harry obviously a danger to them, Barbara and Ben quickly looked for a gun from a police zombie they had just killed. Before they find one, Sarah slowly shambles upstairs and heads for the group. Ben keeps insisting to Harry to shoot her, but refuses to clinging to a delusion that the now zombie is still his daughter. When Ben attempts to do the deed that Harry won't, Harry begins shooting at Ben.

Barbara is stunned, but quickly grabs the other gun from the zombie policeman, and shoots Sarah in the head. Angered, Harry tries to shoot Barbara, only to be shot by Ben to protect her. Despite Barbara's pleas, Ben and Harry begin shooting at each other. Ben gets Harry in the side, Harry runs off through the house and goes to hide in the attic to find safety for himself. Ben urges Barbara to run, although Barbara pleas with him to go with her.

Ben refuses, mainly because he's too injured by the bullet shots he got from Harry. Barbara promises to return with help. As she flees, Ben, for most likely out of fear of being killed by the zombies, manages to fight off the zombies that come in. And quickly locks himself in the cellar, as he stumbles through he finds a reanimated Helen and shoots her. Ben trying to stay alive, tends his wounds as he listens to the radio. Laughing in irony, as the broadcast basically tell him everything he already knew then laughs more loudly in irony as he discovers the key to the gas pump was in the cellar all this time.

As Barbara continues wondering through the forests and fields, she comes upon an old truck. As she observes it, someone shoots at her. As she begs for them not to shot, she goes to duck behind the truck, she finds a group of dead zombies, her brother Johnny among them. As she moves back in horror, she's grabbed by a man. It's discovered she's run into a group of living that help take her somewhere safe. Barbara wakes and watches the posse of vigilantes, watching them closely as some play with the zombies they've found and use some of them for target practice.

As she continues watching, she says "They're us. We're them and they're us". Later on the posse approaches the house slowly and carefully. The posse disposes of the zombies, they've killed and put them in a pile, getting ready to burn them. Barbara comes along, as she goes in she sees one of them trying to chainsaw the door to the cellar open. Having some hope that Ben could have survived.

As the door is opened, a zombie Ben comes out, most likely dying from his gunshot wounds. He's gunned down, Barbara turns away in sadness for her fallen friend. Soon sees in surprise that a startled Harry had survived. Either in act of shock, or perhaps anger that Harry survived and Ben didn't, Barbara shots Harry. As the posse come to her, she tells them Harry's "another one for the fire". Barbara watches slowly and almost coldly as the posse burns the group of zombies. The film ends with the screen going red showing clips of the posse and of Barbara's scarred eyes.

Cast

Production

The film was handled by the same team as the original, with the exception that directing duties were handled by famed special make-up effects artist Tom Savini, who originally signed up with hopes of doing the make-up effects as he was not able to for the original film. Romero served as producer for the remake, and he recruited some of the original camera and sound crew to participate.

Laurence Fishburne, Ving Rhames and Eriq La Salle were all considered for the role of Ben. Subsequently, Rhames would go on to play a male lead in the remakes of Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead.

To avoid an X rating, Savini had to cut several scenes from the film, some of which can be seen on the DVD. Savini sometimes shows the entirety of the cut scenes at conventions.

External links

• Night of the Living Dead at the Internet Movie Database
• Night of the Living Dead at Allmovie

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