6/27/15 (Part Two): Two is the Loneliest Number

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Adam Cronheim, Alana O'Brien, baseball players, buddy films, Christian Stella, cinema, directorial debut, dramas, end of the world, film reviews, films, friendship, horror films, independent films, Jamie Pantanella, Jeremy Gardner, Larry Fessenden, low-budget films, low-key, Movies, Niels Bolle, post-Apocalyptic, road movie, Ryan Winford, slow-moving films, stranded, The Battery, undead, Walkman, writer-director-producer-actor, zombie apocalypse, zombie movies, zombies

How rad would it be to run wild in a post-apocalyptic world with your best friend? Hunting, fishing, killing zombies, taking whatever you need, never answering to “The Man,” never working another day in your life, just kicking back and taking it all in…if you squint just right, it looks like a damn good life, doesn’t it? Now…imagine the exact same scenario but substitute “a co-worker you don’t know very well” for “your best friend” in the above equation. Not quite as fun, eh?

First-time director Jeremy Gardner (working from his own script) takes a close look at the second scenario, the one that sees you getting stuck with a relative stranger during the fallout from an unnamed zombie epidemic, in the low-key, immensely effective horror-drama The Battery (2012). Utilizing a slow, measured pace and a startling degree of real-world verisimilitude, Gardner has created the equivalent of a mumblecore zombie film, a movie not so much about the ravenous hordes of undead that stagger and groan across empty swatches of abandoned humanity but about the few remaining humans who’ve been left holding the bag. When the end-times come, Gardner seems to say, we’ll all find ourselves doing the exact same things we did during “better times”: arguing, swearing, fighting, listening to music on our headphones, masturbating, hoping, goofing around, wondering and wishing for a better tomorrow.

In as economical a way as possible, we meet our two leads and get the lay of the land right off the bat: Ben (writer-director Gardner) and Mickey (Adam Cronheim) are a couple of baseball players who find their lot tied together once the U.S. (and, presumably, the rest of the world) becomes overrun by zombies. We don’t get big explanations, no sense of a larger scheme at play here, just the facts, ma’am. Although the two were never great friends when things were “normal,” they now find themselves needing to rely on each other for their very survival: you might think that making a new friend is difficult…try doing it when mobs of zombies are trying to eat your face!

Personality-wise, the two former teammates couldn’t be more different. Ben is the brash, act-first member of the team, a guy who sees killing zombies as his duty and relishes the opportunity to live “off the grid” and make his own way through life. Mickey, on the other hand, is much more reserved, quiet and withdrawn. With his ever-present headphones and lingering memories of his lost life with his pre-apocalypse girlfriend, Mickey is like an open, throbbing wound, slinking from one place to the next without ever really living. Hell, he even resists Ben’s constant attempts to teach him how to fish: he’s got plenty of canned goods, after all, so why bother with the “real stuff” until he has to? Grizzly Adams, he ain’t.

Change comes to the guys’ daily fight for survival when they happen to pick up a mundane conversation on their walkie talkies. The discussion might not be earth-shattering (picking out the movie choice for that night) but Ben and Mickey are rocked to their very cores: here, at long last, is proof that they’re not alone. For Ben, it means more potential problems but for Mickey, the existence of others allows him the faintest glimmer of hope: for the first time, he can begin to see the path that leads out of their personal wilderness and back into regimented society.

The problem, of course, is that folks in post-apocalyptic societies don’t tend to be the friendliest, most trusting, sorts. One of the voices, Frank (Larry Fessenden), pointedly tells our heroes that there’s no more room at this particular inn, while the other voice, Annie (Alana O’Brien) does much the same thing, albeit in a nicer way. Too late, however: poor Mickey has already locked on to the newly discovered survivors as his own source of salvation and he won’t take no for an answer. Despite Ben’s constant protests, Mickey wants to track down Frank, Annie and the others at all costs: not only does he get a whiff of the civilization he so desperately misses but, with Annie, he gets a hint of that other thing he desperately misses…female contact.

As Ben and Mickey continue to move through the destroyed landscape of what used to be a familiar country, constantly on the watch for ambushing zombies, they find their own burgeoning friendship tested and strained at every twist and turn in the path. Will the two ever be able to set aside their differences and become united in their goals? Will Mickey be able to rejoin the civilized society that he always carries so close to his heart, via his ever-present Discman, or will he spend the rest of his days in the wild, gradually giving his own humanity over to survival instincts? And what, exactly, are Frank and Annie trying to hide from them? What is the truth behind “The Orchard” and will it spell salvation or doom for our hardy protagonists?

Low-key, understated and pitched at a glacial pace, Gardner’s film isn’t what one might call a “thrill-a-minute” ride. What it lacks in visceral action, however, it more than makes up for with intelligent, character-driven drama. The focus here is squarely on the humans, not the monsters: for almost the entirety of the film, give or take a few choice setpieces, the zombies remain in the background of the action, serving as omnipresent threat but allowing Ben and Mickey to take the reins. In some ways, it’s a similar tactic to Gareth Edwards’ Monsters (2010), in which the massive beasts became secondary to the human drama at the film’s core. The Battery is, first and foremost, about the ways in which Ben and Mickey navigate around their world. which is an important distinction from most low-budget zombie films.

Despite this focus on the dramatic aspect, however, Gardner and crew don’t shortchange the horrific aspect. The zombies are all well-realized, with effective makeup, and the violence, although infrequent, is always gritty and physical. When the film wants to pull out the stops, it has no problem doing so: the setpiece involving Ben and Mickey trapped in a car by a veritable army of the undead is as tense as they come, culminating in a truly brave six-minute shot that handily recalls the tent scene in Bobcat Goldtwait’s recent Willow Creek (2013). By not making the zombie action the center of the film’s universe, it makes the scattered horror moments that much more effective: I can’t stress enough how radically different this is from most low-budget zombie fare.

In many ways, The Battery is a two-man show: although we meet a couple other characters, including the aforementioned Annie and a carjacker (played by Niels Bolle), the vast majority of our screentime is devoted to either Ben or Mickey. As with many low-budget films (particularly horror films), this could have been the kiss of death: as a lifelong horror fan, “outstanding acting” isn’t usually something I usually associate with these types of movies, at least not at this level.

Rather than being a deficit, however, the performances in The Battery end up being one of the film’s greatest benefits. Quite simply, Gardner and Cronheim have fantastic chemistry: not only do we buy these guys as real people but we also buy into their developing friendship, warts and all. There are certain moments, such as the minutes-long scene consisting of nothing more than Ben and Mickey brushing their teeth, that feel like nothing less than getting a front-row seat to real-life, albeit one where the occasional zombie pops into view. Both actors give unique life and characterization to their respective roles (Ben is the “asshole,” Mickey is the “nice guy”) that extends beyond easy stereotyping and feels a whole lot more like real acting. In this aspect, The Battery reminded me of another exemplary indie horror film about a friendship, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s extraordinary Resolution (2012). Like Resolution, the characters in The Battery feel 100% authentic, which works wonders on selling the inherent “unreality” of the zombie apocalypse.

While the cinematography in the film is never much more than decent (aside from a few scattered standouts), the sound design is actually pretty brilliant and flawlessly integrated into the fabric of the film. The big conceit here, that Mickey’s Discman provides the score in “real-time,” is pretty damn awesome: that the musical selections are so varied and exceptional (incorporating everything from traditional blues to Neutral Milk Hotel-ish sonic collages) really kicks the whole film up a notch, resulting in scenes and moments that could best be described as “thoroughly kickass.” The montage of Ben and Mickey bumming around the countryside, set to an old blues stomper, is beautifully evocative, as is the wild, chaotic abandon that fuels the scene where Ben gets wasted and dances in front of a mural. Gardner and crew understand that sound design is as integral a part of a film as the visuals and The Battery provides a great crash course in just how to accomplish that.

All in all, I was massively impressed by The Battery: for a low-budget, independent zombie flick, this is just about as artistic and exceptional as it gets. While the film doesn’t always break new ground (Mickey’s obsession with Annie is particularly tiresome and “old hat”), it strikes out on its own path often enough to prove how much Gardner has to say. For some viewers, the slow pace and relative lack of action might be slightly off-putting but more patient audiences will realize one important fact: you have to learn to crawl before you walk. By taking its time and easing into the horror, Gardner’s film demonstrates that it has the stamina to go the distance. Here’s to hoping that Jeremy Gardner and his team continue to pump out effective, well-made little films like this: for a genre that can often be more smoke than fire, there will always be a need for movies that are actually about something.

The Battery may a road movie set during a zombie plague but, in the bigger scheme of things, it’s really about human interaction and the ways in which we’re all intertwined, whether we like it or not. I’ll take that over another bloody disembowelment any ol’ day of the week.

6/1/14 (Part Two): Friends, Zombies, Fellow Men in the Country…

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actor-director, actor-writer, B-movies, backwoods folk, Billy Ray, Buck WIld, chupacabra, cinema, co-writers, Dru Lockwood, dude ranch, dumb films, Edgar Wright, film reviews, films, guys' weekend, horror, horror films, horror movies, horror-comedies, hunting, Isaac Harrison, isolated communities, Jerrod Pistilli, Joe Stevens, Mark Ford, Matthew Albrecht, Meg Cionni, Movies, rednecks, Shaun of the Dead, Tom and Jerry, Tyler Glodt, white trash, writer-director, zombie films, zombie movies, zombies

By this point in world history, plain ol’ “vanilla” zombie films don’t really have much effect anymore. Sure, they may be one of the easiest low-budget productions for fledgling filmmakers to get involved in (Got some friends, a camera and a location? Guess what, Jack: you just got yourself the beginnings of a zombie film!) but that also means that we’ve been drowning in this kind of direct-to-video filler for a good thirty years, at this point. Once the “prosumer” camera revolution occurred, it was even easier for filmmakers to pump out this kind of product and it seems that zombie films have been multiplying like Tribbles within the last decade or so. In order to inject a bit of life into the subgenre, filmmakers have turned to various ways to “spruce” up the ol’ gut-munchers, the most popular of which involves slamming comedy and the zombie film together, chocolate and peanut butter-style, to create an entirely new (well, kind of new) sub-subgenre: the zom-com.

While Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead (2004) definitely wasn’t the first zom-com (I’d give that title to Dan O’Bannon’s outrageous 1985 yuk/yuck-fest The Return of the Living Dead), it’s probably (still) the most popular one, as well as the first to take the “zom-com” tag and run with it. In the decade since Simon Pegg and the lads tried to forestall a zombie invasion of the UK, there have been several fistfuls of zom-coms, ranging in quality from “drop-dead hilarious” to “just drop dead, already.” In a fairly glutted field, I’m managed to see several worthy successors to Shaun of the Dead: Fido (2006) was an ingenious melding of zom-coms with candy-colored 1950’s nostalgia, while Cockneys vs Zombies (2012) managed to overcome a terribly generic title with solidly-paced jokes and thrills. And, of course, who could forget Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg trading quips in Zombieland (2009)? Mixing zombie chills with chuckles isn’t the easiest task but, when done well, the results can be lots of fun. Unfortunately, Buck Wild (2013), the newest feature from the team of Tyler Glodt and Matthew Albrecht, isn’t so much a “big, dumb blast” as a “really dumb film,” only slightly less stupid than the head-smackingly awful ’80s Troma film Redneck Zombies (1989).

Buck Wild starts promisingly, if crudely, with a fairly funny segment involving beleaguered father Clyde (Joe Stevens), his perpetually horny daughter, Candy (Meg Cionni) and her stupid boyfriend. After decking the boyfriend with a wrench (humping his daughter in the garden is one thing, stepping all over the flowers is a whole other bucket of manure), Clyde ends up getting attacked by a chupacabra. Yes, a chucacabra, ladies and gentlemen. We that, we seem to be off to the races, establishing a crude, fun and extremely tongue-in-cheek attitude.

Unfortunately, the good will begins to fade as the movie proper begins, mostly because we get saddled with a pretty obnoxious group of protagonists. Our “hero” is Craig (co-writer Matthew Albrecht), one of those perpetually put-upon, straight-arrow types that exists solely to become irritated by various indignities. His “best friend,” Lance (Isaac Harrison) is a ridiculously metrosexual “ladies’ man” who happens to be boinking Craig’s girlfriend, Carla (Amerlia Meyers), unbeknownst to our “hero.” The little group is rounded out by Tom (Dru Lockwood) and Jerry (Jarrod Pistilli), who seem to serve as a perpetually at-odds odd couple: you know, cuz they’re named Tom and Jerry? Like the cartoons? The ones with the mouse and cat? Yeah, it just ain’t funny no matter how you slice it, is it? Tom is the typical mealy-mouthed, glasses-wearing dork: we’ve seen at least a million iterations of this character in just the last couple years, nevermind the last couple decades. Jerry, however, is the real prize in this Cracker Jack box: bedecked in a ridiculous fedora, given to smoking cigars in small cars and practicing his nunchuks in the nude, Jerry is supposed to be the epitome of the batshit crazy outsider, that one guy who just…does not…give a FUCK, bro! Except he’s a colossal weenie, sort of a gene-splice between Crispin Glover and Bobcat Goldthwait’s award-winning performance in the Police Academy movies. As such, not only is it impossible to buy the scene where he puts the cigar out on his own hand (cuz this guy totally looks like he would start bawling) but it’s almost offensive to believe that this nitwit occupies the “badass” role in the film. When your bar is that low, no good can come of it, mark my words.

The plot, such as it is, involves one of those “guys-only weekends,” this one ostensibly set-up to allow for not only some male bonding but some animal-shooting, as well. The “gang” heads to the Buck Wild Ranch (Hey! That’s the name of the film! Clever!), which just happens to be run by Clyde. Clyde’s not looking too good and if you’ve seen any zombie films besides this one, you’ll know why. Besides being infected by a chupacabra, Clyde’s also kind of a dick: he calls the guys “punks” and “pissants” (put up your dukes!) and tells them to make sure to stay within the borders of the ranch. Turns out that Clyde’s next-door neighbor is a self-proclaimed “badass” named Billy Ray (Mark Ford) and he doesn’t take kindly to trespassers. The guys end up running afoul of Billy Ray (an absolutely, astoundingly terrible creation that seems to be part frat-boy, part John Waters, part lame-ass rockabilly clothes horse and completely, totally unbelievable) and a completely awful park ranger, Officer Shipley (director/co-writer Tyler Glodt), which don’t really expand the narrative so much as pad it out. Ultimately, they also run afoul of zombies: turns out Clyde has been infecting other locals and, soon, our city slickers are up to their haircuts in the redneck dead. Revelations are had, truths are learned, friends turn into the walking dead, Jerry acts like a badass, yadda yadda yadda. If the ultimate destination of this one-legged mule isn’t readily apparent by the end of the first act…I’m guessing you might actually enjoy this. Hmm…

Look, I’m not gonna sugarcoat this at all: Buck Wild is a stupid film. Aggressively stupid. Worse yet, it’s a hyperactive, self-aware, tone-deaf kind of stupidity that reminds me more of films like Scary Movie (2000) than Shaun of the Dead. Let me give you a good example of the “humor” on display here. After Officer Shipley pulls the guys over because he’s heard “enough gunshots for Baghdad,” he proceeds to stand outside his car and give them a speech about how if you smell shit, you’re probably standing in it. Officer Shipley, it turns out, smells shit: guess what, he asks them. You’re standing in shit, the others point out. And he is…he really is standing in a big pile of shit. Now, if anything about that was humorous (keep in mind that the “delivery” of said “joke” doesn’t help things), Buck Wild just may be right up your alley. Lest we think that the writers only have one kind of joke up their sleeve, they also show us how hilarious and timely their references are: Tom ends up a captive at Billy Ray’s compound and Jerry goes to save him, in a scene that features an ultra-sleazy brass song, Tom bent over a table wearing only his underwear and Jerry wielding a samurai sword. Yeah, that’s right: it’s a fucking Pulp Fiction reference. Not only that, but it’s a “humorous” reference to the rape scene: now that’s comedy!

Lest it sound like Buck Wild is completely worthless, there are actually three elements of the film that really work. The first element is the cinematography, which is consistently well-done and clear: in low-budget films like this, you’re usually lucky if you get something that looks half-way decent, let alone good. The second element that works (spectacularly well, I might add) are the fake TV shows that we occasionally see. One of them, a public access show called “Fucking Hunting” that features Billy Ray and his motley crew, is an absolute scream, miles away the funniest thing in the film. Hot on its heels, however, is another gem of a fake show, this one called “Living Through the Gray,” a self-help show about dealing with color-blindness. The TV shows are not only the funniest moments in the film, hands down, but they’re actually two of the funniest moments I’ve seen in any film recently: it’s a shame that they’re left to die amid the humorless wasteland that is the rest of the film.

The third element that actually works in Buck Wild is an extremely smart and subversive little commentary on the casual female nudity that inundates most low-mid budget horror films. Unlike similar films that might feature a terrified young starlet running around topless, Buck Wild chooses to make Tom the object of the “male gaze.” For the majority of the film, due to one incident or another, Tom rarely wears more than his underwear and socks: at one point, he fashions a toga out of a garbage bag, only to have a zombie rip it to shreds. Later, he gets to take a shower and emerges, clad in a bathrobe, only to have a passing zombie yank it off, exposing him once again. I’ll be honest: this particular running gag never got old and displayed the kind of invention and thought that I wish the rest of the film possessed. I don’t actually recall any female nudity at all, to be honest, although we get plenty of Tom. In some ways, this seems to be a callback to the Pee Wee character in Porkys (1982), who likewise spends the majority of that film in a constant state of embarrassment, harassment and undress. While the film often seems to be exceptionally mean to Tom, it ends up paying off big dividends, especially during a nicely emotional final setpiece.

Ultimately, however, a few worthy elements don’t a worthy film make. If Buck Wild were just a little less inane and stupid, it would be mighty easy to recommend it as the kind of low-budget romp that it thinks it is. Unfortunately, the film mostly ends up being a showcase of missed opportunities and foul balls, with nary a true home run in the batch (unless we count the TV shows, which really only amount to 2-3 minutes of screen-time, max). While I’m more than willing to give Glodt and Albrecht another chance, there’s no way I would put these guys on my radar: Fool me once, fool me twice and all that jazz.

6/1/14 (Part One): Night of the Bumbling Dead

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1980's, airport, alternate title, Cannibal Ferox, Cannibal Holocaust, City of the Walking Dead, exploitation films, fast zombies, Francisco Rabal, horror, horror films, horror movie, Hugo Stiglitz, Italian cinema, Laura Trotter, Maria Rosaria Omaggio, Mel Ferrer, Nightmare City, nuclear power plant, nuclear radiation, Pierangelo Civera, Ruggero Deodato, so-bad-it's-good, Stefania D'Amario, Stelvio Cipriani, twist ending, Ugo Bologna, Umberto Lenzi, Z-movies, zombie movies, zombies, zombies with weapons

A birds’-eye-view of a city, supplemented by a nicely atmospheric, Goblin-esque slowburner of a song, leads to the revelation that there’s been a spill at the local nuclear power plant. Nothing to worry about, since the spill has supposedly been contained, but TV reporter Dean Miller (Hugo Stiglitz) has been sent to cover the story. As he waits at the airport for his contact, Prof. Hagenbach, to get in, an unidentified military transport plan suddenly lands with no warning or radio contact. As the military, police and airport officials, along with Dean and his cameraman, surround the plane, everyone waits for several long, silent, agonizing minutes. Just as the military is preparing to storm the plane, the hatch door opens and we wait, anxiously, to see who (or what) will stumble out. For its first eight or so minutes, Umberto Lenzi’s Nightmare City (1980) is one tense, restrained live-wire of a film. While the 80 minutes that follow end up being completely laughable and silly, the film manages to succeed as one of those “so-bad-it’s-good” treats, perfect fodder for a drunken party or a lazy weekend of bad films.

Once the plane hatch opens, Dean and company are greeted by some of the shabbiest zombies in memory (I’ve seen more zombie films than are probably healthy for one individual and I can’t recall worse makeup in anything prior to Nightmare City), a shambling horde of fairly normal looking folks with lumpy, gray oatmeal slathered on their faces. Besides being part of a balanced breakfast, the “zombies” are also very fast…and very armed. Yes, folks: this is that notorious zombie film where the flesh-eating creatures spend more time firing machine guns and strangling people than biting them. In fact, as we later learn, the zombies aren’t really “zombies,” at all, but some kind of radiation-mutated, blood-sucking freaks: they’re atomic zompires! As the zompires run riot around the city, Dean tries to find his wife, Anna (Laura Trotter), who’s making a desperate stand at a besieged hospital. Meanwhile, Major Warren Holmes (Francisco Rabal) and Gen. Murchison (Mel Ferrer), two of the most ineffectual military men in the history of cinema, try to contain the zompire threat but only succeed in making everything worse. There are bomber planes on stand-by, however…just in case.

As Dean and Anna try to stave off the zompires, the General’s daughter, Jessica (Stefania D’Amario) and her husband, Bob (Pierangelo Civera) are also running around, trying to stay alive. Eventually, all of these characters will come together in one giant mess of exploding-projectile-television sets, gouged eyeballs, murderous zompire priests and total chaos, culminating in a final showdown in an abandoned amusement park that can best be described as “present and accounted for.” Stay tuned for the “twist” ending, however…or don’t: it really doesn’t change much, in the long run.

Despite how utterly shabby much of Nightmare City ends up being – and we’re talking occasionally Ed Woodian levels of ineptitude here – the film is still consistently enjoyable and quick-paced. I’m still not sold on “fast” zombies (and probably never will be) and feel that arming zombies makes about as much sense as giving The Wolf Man a shotgun but these actually end up being fairly minor quibbles. No one will ever mistake Lenzi’s “opus” has anything more than a Z-grade Italian zombie flick but it’s got energy to burn and is pretty good about not wearing out its welcome. The effects and makeup are consistently awful, although the requisite eye-gouging scene is well-staged and very uncomfortable. The acting is nothing to write home about but Hugo Stiglitz does a decent job as our protagonist and Mel Ferrer gets to act a little agitated as poor, put-upon Gen. Murchison.

Although Umberto Lenzi made a wide-range of films in his career, including various gangster, fantasy and action films, he’ll probably always be best known for his horror films, especially the genuinely disturbing cannibal films The Man From Green River (1972), Eaten Alive (1980) and Cannibal Ferox (1981). Cannibal Ferox, in particular, is a notoriously nasty member of the cannibal subgenre, although it’s slightly eclipsed by Ruggero Deodato’s legendary Cannibal Holocaust (1980). While Lenzi had a fairly wide and deep body of work, he was never the most distinctive director, to be honest, and it’s a bit difficult to differentiate much between his “style” and similar filmmakers like Deodato or Joe D’Amato. He’s practically the definition of “workmanlike,” although his work in Nightmare City definitely ranks in the lower-midrange of his filmography.

If there’s any one aspect of the film that really stands out, it would definitely have to be Stelvio Cipriani’s electronic score. Although it seems to explicitly reference Goblin, at times, the score is always appropriately moody and, frequently, rather thrilling. Cipriani also did the scores for several Mario Bava films, including his classic Bay of Blood (1971), so his roots in Italian exploitation cinema go fairly deep. While nothing here approaches the dizzying heights of Goblin’s work with Dario Argento, it’s all well-done and definitely enhances the overall experience.

Ultimately, your tolerance/enjoyment of Nightmare City will depend almost entirely on your experience with these kind of films. If you go in expecting an actually well-made, well-executed film (or even a well-made B-movie), you’re going to be sorely disappointed. If, however, you go in expecting a silly, gonzo, violent, shabby-as-hell Z-grade exploitation flick, you might be able to navigate these waters with some ease. Nothing can save that awful ending, of course, but what comes before it is just fun enough to make the journey worthwhile…kind of…sort of…

5/19/14: Everything Old is New Again

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Bill Moseley, black and white film, cinema, color vs black & white, film reviews, films, George Romero, horror, horror films, isolated estates, isolation, Katie Finneran, McKee Anderson, Michael Haneke, Movies, Night of the Living Dead, Patricia Tallman, practical effects, remakes, special effects pioneer, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the living dead, Tom Savini, Tom Towles, Tony Todd, William Butler, zombie movies, zombies

As a general rule, I’m not a fan of film remakes, especially remakes of classic or iconic films. I can see the merit, to a point, in remaking a bad or compromised film, especially if you were a fan of the original…sort of a take two, if you will. Remaking a well-made, well-received film, however, seems completely pointless. I’ll go to the grave stating that no modern audience member will die if they’re forced to watch something that’s more than a few years old. I promise: sitting through a black and white film or something from any of the various decades before 2010 will not cause internal bleeding, memory loss or phantom limb syndrome.

With that being said, however, I’m a little more ambivalent when it comes to filmmaker remaking their own films. While this seems like kind of an odd, specific situation, it has happened a few times, usually when a popular foreign director makes the transition to Hollywood films: German misery merchant Michael Haneke remade his original Funny Games (1997) as an American version in 2007; Takashi Shimizu remade Ju-On (2002) as The Grudge (2004) for American audiences;  George Sluizer turned Spoorloos (1988) into The Vanishing (1993); and Ole Bornedal’s Nattevagten (1994) became the Ewan McGregor starring Nightwatch (1997). In each of these instances, the originals were popular films, especially on the festival circuit, which prompted American remakes to capitalize on the buzz (although it’s interesting to note that Haneke waited a decade between his versions of Funny Games): the thought, it seems, is that American audiences aren’t big on reading subtitles, since some of these films are only different by virtue of the language spoken. The 1990 remake of George Romero’s iconic Night of the Living Dead doesn’t really fit any of these bills but it’s also the furthest thing from something like the modern remakes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Friday the 13th, since Romero produced, wrote the screenplay and handpicked the director: special effects pioneer Tom Savini.

If you’ve never seen the original Night of the Living Dead (1968), your first move should be to go watch that, right away: I’ll wait. All done? Excellent. Here’s what you saw: a raw, visceral, black and white nightmare that’s equal parts siege picture and sly social commentary, the kind of film that features a child consuming her mother and a black hero (in 1968, no less) who survives the zombies only to be shot dead by rednecks. It’s an independent film in every sense of the word, featuring a bunch of amateur filmmakers wearing as many hats as they can pile on their heads and going for broke in a way that only hungry, young artists can. It’s an unmitigated classic, almost singlehandedly responsible for nearly 50 years of zombie movies.

Remaking a film like Night of the Living Dead doesn’t seem like such an impossible task: after all, the first film was a crude, zero-budget production where local business people who donated funds took on roles as zombies, newscasters, police, etc. It was a black and white film that required gore effects at a time when that just wasn’t the norm. With all of the advances in filmmaking technology, special effects and computer-generated effects, making something like Night of the Living Dead in this modern era should be easy. The problem, of course, is that Night of the Living Dead was a labor of love: it was a real film that became a classic, similar to Hooper’s original Texas Chainsaw or Cunningham’s Friday the 13th (1980). Catching lightning is a bottle twice is no easy feat: manufacturing impact and meaning is impossible.

For the most part, Savini’s remake of Night of the Living Dead isn’t drastically different from Romero’s original but there are a few subtle changes/differences. The film still takes place in an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, although the place now looks like a cross between the Sawyer homestead in Texas Chainsaw and Norman’s taxidermy-crammed residence in Psycho (1960). We still get Barbara but Patricia Tallman’s version is a huge improvement from Judith O’Dea’s original: this Barbara is no catatonic babe-in-the-woods but an ass-kicking “final girl,” more Ellen Ripley than doe-eyed victim. Her character development feels very organic, although the scene where she trades her skirt for a pair of pants seems a bit on the nose. Ben is still here but Tony Todd’s version is more of an angry, shouty bloke, not too far removed from Tom Towles’ obnoxious Harry Cooper. This version of Harry manages something that I’d always felt impossible and actually makes the character more repellent and crude: as portrayed in Savini’s version, Harry Cooper is a Jersey Shore-meathead, a ridiculous character who’s just one “You’ze guyz!” away from being a complete stereotype.

This, then, isn’t a carbon-copy of the original, aside from the obvious color vs black and white issue. While many of the ideas and themes from Romero’s original have been kept (Romero did, after all, write the screenplay for the remake), there are many aspects that have been changed completely. The horror of Barbara confronting her own zombified brother has been done-away with in the remake by having her come across his already dead body: it robs a chance for some genuine emotion from the story and feels like a surely missed opportunity. Whereas the original had Ben survive the ordeal only to killed by humans the following morning, the remake does away with this, as well: Barbara is the final survivor and Ben emerges from the house as an obvious zombie, only to be shot and killed by the rednecks. This is a subtle but big difference: in the remake, there’s no mistaking Ben for a zombie and the kill is just about as necessary as you get. In the original, however, it’s never made clear whether Ben is killed because the trigger-happy rednecks think he’s actually a zombie or because they see an opportunity to kill a black man without penalty. Barbara is the one, in the remake, who gets to use the zombie apocalypse for her own ends: when the loathsome Harry Cooper emerges, unscathed, Barbara calmly and coldbloodedly shoots him, proclaiming him another zombie. In this instance, there’s no mistaking her intent, as with the rednecks killing Ben: she means to get vengeance for Harry’s assholery. Whereas the final scene in the original finishes off Ben’s character arc, the final scene in the remake finishes off Barbara’s character arc: a different focus for a different era, as it were.

For all of the subtle differences between the two versions, both Romero and Savini’s Night of the Living Deads are remarkably similar. For my money, though, the original still has more impact: there’s something that’s undeniably sad, lonely and terrifying about the original and I can’t help but feel is has something to do with the black and white. The cinematography in Savini’s remake is often quite good, don’t get me wrong, but it’s never very evocative. There’s very little atmosphere in the film and it functions much more as an action film than an honest-to-god horror movie. The effects and makeup in the remake, as expected, are excellent, although I found quite a bit of the prosthetic work to be a little rough: there’s one damned rubber hand that seems to make an appearance everywhere and it never looks like anything more than a cheap haunted house prop. I was actually surprised to find that the effects work and gore seemed a little tamer in the remake than the original, something which made no sense to me until I read that Savini’s remake was severely edited to earn an R rating: that makes a lot more sense. Still, what’s here is suitably excellent, although there isn’t anything groundbreaking. Careful observers might also note that the ending seems to prefigure Romero’s later Diary of the Dead (2007), with zombies being used for target practice and as opponents against human wrestlers/fighters.

Ultimately, Savini’s remake stands as a well-made but, ultimately, rather pointless exercise, aside from the obvious benefit of putting more funds into Romero’s coffer. Since his copyrighting issues with the original film resulted in the almost complete loss of any exhibition revenues, it’s only fitting that he would get a “second chance,” as it were, via the remake. Some of the changes strike me as worthy: It’s always refreshing to have a more feminist take on female characters in horror films, so the remaking of Barbara as strong heroine strikes me as a great, welcome change from the original: I always found the original character to be one of the weakest, most pewling characters in cinema. At the end of the day, however, Savini’s Night of the Living Dead is still the same film about a small band of survivors trapped in a farmhouse by the living dead that Romero’s was. Romero’s film may have been the more impactful, personal and iconic of the two but that should be a given: a perfect copy of a Picasso will never be worth as much as a Picasso…unless you don’t know it’s a copy, that is. Savini’s film is obviously a copy but, in this case, that’s probably alright.