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A group of people take refuge in an old farm house as a zombie plague spreads. Like in the original, it soon becomes obvious that the greatest threat may not come from the zombies outside the house, but from the conflict between those trapped inside. Unlike the original though, the character of Barbara is now empowered, fighting zombies with as much gusto as her male counterparts.
Not only did he take over directing here, but Tom Savini’s zombie makeup and gore effects are first rate in this movie. One can only wonder how graphic this movie would have been if it was made today when unrated DVD releases are commonplace. No one can deny that the effects and gore in the remake of NOTLD are vastly superior to those found in the original. As a remake this movie does a pretty good job. Savini changed enough to make things interesting, but didn’t totally abandon the feeling of the original. The new Barbara’s idea of just running past the zombies because of how slow they are is something never even thought of in the original. I’m sure there are fans out there, who saw the original and thought the same thing.
The ending and the character of Barbara are the biggest differences between this movie and the original. Barbara gets mad early in the movie and decides that she’s going to do something about it. Personally, I liked this version of Barbara a lot more than the original. As well, the Barbara in the remake of NOTLD better reflects the way women are today than the passive Barbara we see in the original. The ending is different in that Barbara survives after making a run for it as zombies overrun the house. She also kills Cooper when she finds him alive after he hid in the attic. The ending leaves you wondering if the mob of people killing the zombies is any better than the zombies, which is the same message at the end of the original.
If the ending has a drawback, it’s that it leaves the viewer wanting more. I would have liked to have known what happened to Barbara next, and this has been the topic of numerous fan-fictions on the internet. A sequel should have followed, allowing Savini to make his own Living Dead Trilogy. Unfortunately, this movie didn’t make the money that it was expected to, so that made a sequel implausible. Like in the original, the characterization isn’t the greatest. Cooper is still a jerk, but at least he was still right about the basement being the safest place in the house. Again, like in the original, it’s obvious that outside of Ben, Barbara and Cooper, the rest of the characters are just there to be zombie fodder. Ben becoming a zombie is shocking, but it would have been interesting to have seen some of the other characters developed so we cared when they died. As much as I like the new Barbara, there are those who dislike her. They either find that the difference between the new and old Barbara too drastic, or they see the new Barbara as a rip-off of other strong female movie characters like Ripley in the Alien movies. I’ll put it this way: Are we given any indications that the new Barbara would be such an effective zombie killer? The answer is no, and it even seems out of character for it to happen. But is it cool when she starts kick some zombie ass? The answer is yes, and I give Savini a lot of credit for having the guts to do something so drastic with such a well known horror movie character.
The biggest problem with the remake of NOTLD is that it isn’t the original. The original was perhaps the most important zombie movie ever made and one of the most important horror movies ever made. There was almost no way that the remake could have accomplished so much. Unless you were like me, and saw the remake before the original, this movie is always going to pale in comparison to the original NOTLD.
The remake of NOTLD will always have a special place in my heart. It was the first zombie movie that I ever watched, and it made me into a zombie fan. However, it feels more like a good remake rather than a major contribution to the zombie genre. Because of the status of the original, being a good remake just isn’t enough. I would recommend this movie to zombie fans though, but I also would warn them that they’re going to be disappointed if they’re expecting a movie of same magnitude as the original.
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