by Daniel Humphreys
On October 19, 1990, the Tom Savini-directed remake of “Night of the Living Dead” arrived in theaters. Unlike many remakes, this one featured the cooperation of the creator of the original 1968 film, George Romero, who worked from his original script.
It was a good weekend at the movies. My parents, in a moment I can only describe as insanity, let me see NOTLD by myself while they saw another film that released the same week, “Quigley Down Under.” It’s ironic, but “Quigley” is now one of my favorite Westerns. But I was a teenager, and action/horror sounded a lot better than a Western set in Australia, of all places.
By 1990, the Romero zombie craze was pretty much over. The year I was born, he released the classic “Dawn of the Dead.” The final film in the trilogy, “Day of the Dead” came out in 1985, along with the unofficial sequel “Return of the Living Dead.”
I often wonder if I would have become a fan of the genre had my entry point been different. The original “Night” is more a social commentary and thriller than a true horror movie. While there are moments of terror, there’s not a whole lot of action, unless you like watching Ben and Harry argue about what to do while the world ends around them. That’s appealing to the palate of an adult cinema fan, but my younger self would have regarded it as a snooze-fest. Would the zany comedy of “Return” have appealed to me as much if I hadn’t seen the original Romero films to appreciate it? Would I have sought out the novelization of “Dawn of the Dead” at the library—I couldn’t find the VHS anywhere; those were dark days for movie geeks—if the remake hadn’t knocked my socks off? Somehow, I doubt it.
The main difference in the remake—with the exception of Savini’s marvelous and gruesome special effects—is the portrayal of Barbara. In the original, she’s reduced to a shocked mess by what she witnesses, and as a character, she doesn’t do much at all. Patricia Tallman’s portrayal is a complete opposite. Her Barbara sucks it up and has much more agency as a character—she’s more Sarah Conner or Ellen Ripley than a mere victim.
The remake of ‘Night’ wasn’t really a financial success. It ended its box office run with a mere $5 million in ticket sales (“Quigley,” by comparison, brought in four times that, and the original “Home Alone” won 1990 with $280 million plus). As such, it’s not a surprise that the zombie genre staggered along, pun intended, for the next decade. Most of the movies that came out over that time were low-budget direct-to-video releases, and while they were great for the existing fandom, they didn’t do much to move the needle.
But, a funny little thing happened a bit more than a decade later. In a span of nine months, from June 2003 to March 2004, zombies went mainstream. I think one could easily argue that the release of “28 Days Later”, the first issue of “The Walking Dead”, and the film premieres of “Shaun of the Dead” and the “Dawn of the Dead” remake primed the pump, and we now live in a world literally suffused with zombie media. As a fan, it’s been a great run. The real question, of course, is how long it lasts—but that’s a question for next time.
Check out A Place Outside the Wild and A Place Called Hope by Daniel Humphreys.
Jay's Patreon Page | Purchase Signed Books