Judith O’dea:  Barbara
Duane Jones:  Ben
Karl Hardman:  Harry Cooper
Marilyn Eastman:  Helen Cooper
Kyra Schon:  Karen Cooper
Judith Ridley:  Judy
Keith Wayne:  Tom

Release Date: February 11, 2011
Studio: Wild Eye Releasing
Genre: Action / Adventure
Unrated  1 hr 31 mins

CAST:

Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated

April 13, 2011

Reviewer: Rottenbucher

DIRECTOR:

Mike Schneider & George A. Romero

*Comments:

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With over 100 artists contributing traditional animation, computer animation, claymation, graphic stills, photographs, paintings, puppets, and carbon rubbings, Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated is an ambitious tribute to the original horror masterpiece. Supervising director Mike Schneider took the public domain reels of George A. Romero’s film and painstaking married it to a scene-by-scene or frame-by-frame interpretation. The art ranges from awful to amazing and makes for one intense viewing.

By now, everyone who loves horror has seen Night of the Living Dead.  But no one has seen it like this.  While Avatar Press has been keeping the famed Night alive in an ongoing comic series, Romero has continued making sequels and just about every other month a zombie flick is released on DVD, NOTLD: Reanimated truly is a rebirth for the original. Even while some of the art is less than desirable, it is amazing to see how artists interpret the film.  It is also amazing to sit through the film and try to interpret the explosion of images while having the original play through your head. It puts a totally new spin on something basically just edited to the film’s original audio.

Wild Eye has made their DVD a rather extensive and impressive collection of information on the production and even more tributes to the original film.  They include a visual boilerplate for each contributing artist and even add submissions that didn’t make the final cut.  The DVD also contains a very interesting audio-commentary track from the editors/producers and horror author Jonathan Mayberry (Ghost Road Blues, Zombie CSU).  Internet horror host Count Gore Ve Dal gives a nerdy yet nifty introduction to the film and a horror panel gives great insights to the impact of the original film on not only horror films, but books, traditional art, video games and even tattoos.

It really is hard to describe NOTLD: Reanimated without just showing it. In fact, if you are curious about the film, please check out the official trailer. See, sometimes it looks like a mess, sometimes it is simply beautiful. Some of the quality of the images or animation is stunning, other times it looks like it was lifted from a highly pixilated Flash video. All the while the original audio track plays beneath a shower of images, animation and art that will either appeal to or annoy your eyes.  Most fans of the original (and standard film and animation) will have a hard time enjoying NOTLD: Reanimated. Actually, the people that will dig this release will be artists themselves, art fans, and those who read zombie comics, including the official series.

Even though it isn’t a masterpiece, NOTLD: Reanimated does deserve a lot of praise.  Not only for the hard work the artists and editors went through to create this multifocal vision, but of the kid gloves most of them used when coming up with their vision of Night of the Living Dead. Recommended to serious fans of the original film and those that like zombie-based art, video games and comics only.