NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD 3D

While the images of "Night of the Living Dead" in black and white are playing on a gas station TV screen, Barb and her brother Johnny are heading to the cemetery for their uncle's funeral. Upon arrival, instead of their relatives and friends, they find a group of zombies ready to attack them. Johnny flees in the car, Barb heads towards the woods and is rescued by Ben, a guy on a motorcycle who takes her to the Cooper farm, a family of marijuana growers. The group of people will have to survive the night and the numerous zombies that besiege the house where they are taking refuge. The second official remake of "Night of the Living Dead" is a big piece of crap. But not that kind of crap that mixes humor, sex & gore and makes you almost ashamed that you're having fun... absolutely not! It's one of those deeply sour pieces of crap that barely hold up until the end. Jeff Broadstreet, director, producer, and screenwriter of the semi-unknown trash "Dr. Rage", had the bright idea of remaking one of the cornerstones of world horror cinema, one of the most influential and important films of the '900s, the pioneer of the cinematic cultural revolution that finally legitimized the figure of the zombie in cinema. But probably that sly fox Broadstreet didn't want to pay a heartfelt tribute to Romero's masterpiece, but rather picked from the deck of public domain films (eh yeah, "Night of the Living Dead" from 1968 has been in the public domain for a long time due to a copyright mix-up by an old distribution company) what could seem most appetizing. But Broadstreet didn't limit himself to the feat of remaking an unnecessary remake (remember that in 1990 Tom Savini had already directed a remake of "Night" and it had turned out rather well), but rather turned the original work into a banal farce. That Broadstreet took liberties with the plot and also considerably changed the characters and ending is fine, in fact, it's better to stand out when you take the path of remaking. But turning the material you had into outright "crap" means either not understanding what you were dealing with or being so reckless as to consciously do the wrong thing, objectively speaking. Showing every 10 minutes a scene from the original film by keeping the camera fixed on the TV has a strange effect of bootlicking that you don't understand if it wants to be a tribute/citation or a device to make the runtime pass. When one of the characters then comments on Romero's film by saying that it's nonsense because everyone dies in the end, the suspicion begins to arise that the tribute/citation is to be excluded, at least not in the terms of an affectionate and respectful tribute/citation. After all, what do we want from a remake that turns Henry Cooper and his wife into a couple of stoned potheads who grow marijuana? And Ben into a white kid who hangs out there to get the weed to sell to school kids? Let's add to the load that Broadstreet also has the idea of finding an explanation for the zombie epidemic, a confusing explanation that leaks from all sides and completely nullifies the apocalyptic breath of the Romerian concept. Well, you've understood where the problems are, right! But we don't just limit ourselves to wrong ideas brought to the screen, but also to a pedestrian realization straight-to-video in which a group of less than mediocre actors, among whom also the ugly mug of Sid Haig ("House of 1000 Corpses"; "House of the Devil") appears in an unheard-of role, deliver idiotic lines with seriousness ("When the dead wake up... we have to call the police!") and behave in a clumsy and unlikely way. The dead wake up and try to attack them? Among them, for the most part, calm reigns, as if outside the house instead of zombies there is a pack of kittens. And then do we want to talk about the zombies' makeup? Practically, the recently dead return to life and are already decomposed! And then it's a carnival-like decomposition typical of those who don't have the means and want to show... we can understand the low budget, but here it means only one thing: inexperience. If you're thinking/hoping, I'll immediately dispel your illusion: no, in "Night of the Living Dead" dated 2006 there is no presence of splatter and violence (except for a timid dismemberment in the finale), not a drop of blood flows, and the deaths occur off-screen. The only exploitative element is the presence of a chick with her tits out (Cristin Michele of "2001 Maniacs" and "House of the Dead 2 - Zombie Hunter") who runs screaming among the living dead after a not-so-passionate embrace. And to think that if Broadstreet had at least aimed for violence and sex, it would have turned into the boundary of the funny crap we were talking about. Instead, no, sadomasochism until the end! In America, the film was released in 3D (and indeed the original title reads "Night of the Livind De3D") but in Italy, the magic of stereoscopy has been lost, and One Movie has recovered the title for the home video market only. Seeing the results, I don't think that "Night of the Living Dead" by such Broadstreet would have gained anything with the addition of a dimension.