NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1990) Revisited - Horror Movie Review - Tony Todd

in 1968 director george a romero shocked the world with his feature debut knight at the living dead the horror film that introduced the concept of flesh-eating ghouls the walking dead driven by an urge to consume the living a new kind of monster that captured the imaginations and scared the hell out of people although the word zombie is never spoken in the film that's what the audience would decide these things should be called and zombies remain incredibly popular to this day a couple of decades after making night of the living dead romero and his collaborators decided to produce a remake knight of the living dead 1990 didn't go over as well as its predecessor did to put it lightly but it is one of the best remakes of a horror classic we've ever gotten and if you haven't seen it yet it's the best horror movie you never saw [Music] romero directed the original night of the living dead from a screenplay he wrote with john a russo when it came time for the remake romero handled the writing duties himself he stuck to the concept of seven people seeking shelter in an isolated farmhouse as the unburied dead return to life the characters are even the same they interact with each other in the same ways for the most part some of them even meet the same fate in 1990 as they met in 1968 romero did tweak the dialogue and add the occasional twist he also scripted the remake to be faster and more eventful but he decided not to direct the movie online trivia claims that capricorn 1 and outland director peter hiams was offered to take the chance to take the helm but that didn't work out because hayam's opted to make the gene hackman thriller narrow margin instead it's difficult to find a source for this claim so it may or may not have happened what definitely happened is that romero asked legendary special effects artist tom savini to direct i want to thank you guys for watching the best horror movie you never saw and ask that if you enjoy our shows please subscribe to our channel right now like the video and click on the bell so you can be notified each time a new video goes up and now back to the show romero and savini had a working relationship that went back nearly 15 years at that point savini had been providing the bloodshed and taking acting roles in romero's films since martin in 1976. romero had also given savini the chance to get into directing having him direct three episodes of his anthology series tales from the dark side based on the strength of those episodes romero knew his longtime collaborator could handle night of the living dead 1990. romero and savini had first met when savini was still in high school this was in the mid-60s when romero was thinking of making a movie called wine of the fawn it would have been a coming-of-age movie set in the middle of ages centering on a couple of teenagers the teenage savini was interested in being involved with the movie when that project was scrapped and eventually replaced by night of the living dead savini wanted to do the special effects but he got sent off to the vietnam war before filming began when the new knight of the living dead was brought up to him it was like getting a second chance to work on the movie he missed out on savini had some ideas for the new movie that got shot down very quickly and since the first knight had been in black and white he thought the remake should start that way with color gradually seeping in the producers weren't into that the remake is in color from the first frame he also pitched the idea of zombie point of view shots that would be in black and white going in and out of focus romero didn't like that feeling that seeing the world through the eyes of the zombies would give the dead too much life one major change that savini was able to bring to the table was the evolution of the barbara character in the original film barbara played by judith udaya had been shocked into a catatonic stake early on and never really emerged from it savini wanted her to start off as an unstable mousy school mom type someone who needs her brother to drive her 200 miles to the cemetery her mother is buried in she can't handle the drive on her own but as the world falls apart around her barbara finds her inner strength and becomes a badass heroine his vision for barbara even drew comparisons to sigourney weaver in aliens romero went along with it a chance to make up for how weak barbara had been the first time around caroline williams who had worked with savini on the texas chainsaw massacre 2 was considered for barbara but the role went to patricia tallman an actress and stunt woman who had known savini and romero for a long time she even had roles in knight riders and one of savini's dark side episodes a very strong character in the original film had been ben played by dwayne jones it was going to be tough for anyone to try to live up to jones's performance ving rhames lawrence fishburn and eric lasalle were up for the rule romero's then wife christine an associate producer on the project was particularly impressed by lasalle's addition but then future genre icon tony todd still a few years away from playing candyman came in and blew savini away with his addition he got the part aside from barbara who'd be looking quite different with short red hair savini wanted the cast to resemble the originals as much as possible given his association with horror you might think he cast tom toles in the film because he was familiar with them from henry portrait of a serial killer but savini hadn't seen henry he cast tolls as the hard-headed hot-tempered harry cooper ben's nemesis because he could act and look like carl hardman from the first movie mckee anderson was cast as harry's long-suffering wife helen originally played by marilyn eastman the coopers have a young daughter who's suffering from a zombie bite this character named karen played by kyra shone in 68 is now sarah played by heather mazur stepping in for keith wayne and judith ridley as young lovers tom and judy were william butler and kate finneran this was finneran's screen debut genre fans already knew butler from things like ghoulies 2 friday the 13th part 7 the new blood freddy's nightmares and leatherface texas chainsaw massacre 3. that's right the guy shared the screen with ghoulies jason freddy leatherface and romero zombies now that's a career i'm proud of of course it was also necessary to cast someone special in the role of johnny barbara's short-lived brother who speaks the famous line they're coming together for this role savini chose texas chainsaw massacre two's bill moseley the original johnny had been played by knight of the living dead producer russ streiner who returned to produce the remake alongside romero and original co-writer john a russo night of the living dead 1990 or knight 90 as it's called by fans and the people who are behind it exists because of an error a distributor made 22 years earlier the original film had landed a distribution deal with continental releasing a division of the walter reed organization but when they handed the film over it was called knighted the flesh eaters the decision was made to change the title tonight of the living dead and when the distributor changed the title they forgot to put a copyright notice on the film without that knight of the living dead became public domain as soon as continental sent it out into the world the movie racked up millions of dollars that didn't go to romero his collaborators or the rest of the investors the nightmakers filed a lawsuit against continental that dragged on for years as soon as the three million dollar judgment was made in the filmmakers favor continental went bankrupt so that three million went out the window they did get the rights to their movie back but the bootlegging was so prolific they still didn't make much profit from it they tried their best to take unauthorized copies and merchandise off the market but it proved difficult to keep control of the stuff around 1986 another lawsuit had to be filed when hall roach studios made a colorized version of the film without permission once that issue was dealt with russo decided it was time to face another problem the possibility that someone might try to remake knight of the living dead when he heard that a company in texas was considering doing just that he called romero to get the ball rolling on their own remake romero openly admitted to fangoria that the decision to make knight 90 was purely financial they wanted to make money for the original investors who had been screwed over by the copyright ordeal in the decades since night 90 was released we have seen unauthorized remakes being released along with other attempts to cash in on the familiar name without involving the original filmmakers but at the end of the 80s romero russo and their associates were able to get their remake into production before anyone else could almost everyone who had a hand in knight 68 was invited back to be part of knight 90 but there was one notable absence bill heinzmann had played the cemetery ghoul the first zombie we see in the original film he was one of the original knight investors and you might expect to see him at least make a cameo in the remake that didn't happen because he and others had just had a falling out while they were trying to get the remake off the ground heinzmann had decided to make his own low-budget zombie movie he basically played the cemetery ghoul again in that film which is best known by the title flesh eater romero and russo had sent cease and desist letters to hindsman telling him not to make it he made it anyway so he's not in night 90 but thankfully the old friends did bury the hatchet eventually and flesh eater is really entertaining too while the original knight was made for just over 100 000 knight 90 had a budget of 4 million manahem golan's production company 21st century film corporation got involved a distribution deal was made with columbia pictures a company that had passed on the chance to release the original because they didn't like the downbeat ending that makes it sound like things should have been great on night 90 production should have gone smoothly it should have been a blast to work on and yet slovenia has called the experience of directing the film the worst nightmare of his life the trouble started well before filming savini had storyboards drawn of every single shot he wanted to capture on film romero was impressed then he pointed out that savini had more shots planned than he'd be able to pull off during the 36 day shooting schedule so the director already had to start whittling down his version of the storyboard stage like the previous dead movies knight 90 was shot in pennsylvania but once filming began romero was only on set for a few days he was writing the stephen king adaptation the dark half and had to get back to his home in florida he was facing a deadline and needed to focus on his script once romero left everything went to hell as far as savini was concerned he did not get along with the two producers who were left in charge he never named names but has said he didn't have any issues with romero his wife russo or stryner so you can try to figure out who gave him grief from there these producers were constantly rushing savini they told him there wasn't enough time for some of the interesting shots he had planned he wasn't given any time to shoot the moments necessary for suspense building scenes he even claimed that one of the producers would call romero and lie to him telling him savini was wasting time on set during an interview with phil monthly savini said in a quote my hands were just slapped all over the place i couldn't do a lot of stuff this movie is about forty percent of what i intended it would be a much better movie if i had gotten to put in all the stuff i really wanted to do one interesting scene that savini had shot needed to be removed from the film in case of a lawsuit the movie begins with barbara and her brother johnny visiting the cemetery where their mother is buried johnny is attacked and killed by a zombie there and barbara runs off to the nearest farmhouse later when zombies are attacking the farmhouse barbara was supposed to see a female ghoul that reminded her of her mother the scene was filmed barbara imagining that an approaching zombie is her mom then the zombie gets shot in the head unfortunately the person playing the mom look-alike zombie got a concussion from the blood squib on their head the producers decided to take her out of the movie in case she ended up suing them for that injury her scene was replaced by the shirtless zombie who comes busting in barbara uses him as an example showing that he can't be killed unless he's shot in the head night 90 was cut down more at the behest of the mpaa they seemed to have it out for savini since he was known as the king of splatter and they probably weren't too happy that dawn of the dead and day of the dead had bypassed them and been released unrated so they made sure to take as much blood out of knight 90 as they could knight 90 earned its r rating and was given a theatrical release in october of 1990 but despite the well-known title and the halloween season release it wasn't a hit the audience didn't seem very interested in watching the new version of knight of the living dead the film made just under 6 million at the box office night 90 remains in the conversation because it was remake with romero's involvement it just was never as popular as the dead movies that came before it it does have a solid fan following and some horror fans even enjoy it more than the original but a lot less horror fans have seen it than have seen knight of the living dead 68 made for financial reasons knight 90 didn't make much money and didn't have much of an impact savini is disappointed with a lot of things about knight 90. he doesn't really like the music by paul mccalla a composer he didn't choose himself he seems to feel that night falls too late in the movie one blu-ray release tried to fix that for him by darkening the image fans didn't appreciate that very much savini's vision was compromised and he even released a book of his storyboards to show fans what could have been he did have some good ideas for moments that would have made the movie even better but while the movie isn't what he imagined it's still really good slovenian cinematographer frank prinzi were able to capture an unsettling tone for the film and while the director feels differently mccullough's music goes well with the imagery there's something very chilling about this movie you truly feel like you're stuck in that farmhouse with the characters on a dark lonely night surrounded by the dead and the farmhouse they filmed in was an incredible find the perfect location on an awesome looking piece of property there's an intensity to knight 90 for most of the running time it feels like the characters never get a chance to let their guard down for more than a second in both this film and the original the people in the farmhouse board up the doors and windows to keep the zombies out or so they hope the boarding process is done fairly early on in the 68 film and the boards are mostly secure the characters are allowed to take a breather now and then watch some television that's not really the case in this one and not just because the tv gets smashed the boarding process continues throughout the majority of the film the characters are constantly hammering things over doors and windows and the zombies are always right there to complicate the process savini and romero use the viewer's knowledge of the original to drop in misdirects there are times when you think you know what's gonna happen because you saw the first movie but then savini hits you with a surprise a big example of this comes during the first zombie attack when barbara and johnny see a dazed looking old man approach them you assume it's a zombie the cemetery ghoul but he's just an injured mourner barbara and johnny are so focused on them that they don't see the actual cemetery ghoul until it's too late the barber character is another curve ball at first it looks like she's gonna be overwhelmed and follow the original barbara into catatonia but she snaps out of it and she becomes stronger as the night goes on just like in the 68 movie ben and harry cooper have a serious disagreement over whether or not they should hide in the cellar this time barbara presents another option we should leave before it's too late the zombies move so slowly she feels they can just walk away from the farmhouse take their guns and walk to safety in this case barbara is right walking out of there is the best thing to do but the others are too afraid of the zombies to take that risk tallman delivered a great performance as barbara and the cast around her do strong work in their roles as well standouts are of course todd and tolls as bannon cooper those are the showiest parts their conflict gets a lot of attention and the actors made a meal of it their arguments get extremely heated and you can feel their violent anger emanating off the screen todd impressed savini with his addition by memorizing lines quickly and getting emotional while reciting them you can see his skill at this in the finnish movie as well one of the best scenes comes when ben gives a monologue about his experience with the dead before reaching the farmhouse as todd speaks tears are rolling down his face it's captivating but aside from all the emotional moments there's plenty of zombie action to hold your attention and keep you entertained as well it starts early with an exciting sequence set at the cemetery that's quickly followed by more action when barbara and ben first reached the farmhouse bursts of horror come frequently throughout as savini said on his audio commentary and i quote people go to the movies to see things happen not to watch people talk he made sure there was always something happening in this movie as he told the los angeles times he was aiming to make this a remake along the lines of the thing and the fly he says it's not better but different it's not a strict remake of the original same characters about the same plot but it's more intense a lot more intense from increasing the amount of action to increasing the anger ben and cooper feel toward each other he did successfully make an intense movie toward the end of the film romero's script also takes the story into territory he had entered with dawn of the dead and day of the dead the idea that there's still a hint of humanity within the zombies and that people lose their humanity while dealing with the situation we see people making a game of the zombie outbreak hanging zombies holding zombie fights watching this happen around her barbara says they're us we're them and they're us it's very reminiscent of the zombie movies romero made between the two nights the original knight of the living dead is a very important film in horror history the remake not so important but it is absolutely worth watching it's fun to see romero and his collaborators return to the material after a couple of decades the result is a movie that may not be an immortal classic but is still one of the best entries in the zombie sub genre even with producer interference dragging him down savini proved to be a solid director it's a shame there hasn't been a lot more savini directed movies since this one but at least he made one that viewers will always be curious about and seek out due to the title and unlike other remakes sequels and spin-offs that have come since at least this night of the living dead was done with the approval of the creators thank you for watching our show if you like what you see please subscribe to our joe blow horrors original channel tell your friends who like this sort of content and turn on the 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Channel: JoBlo Horror Originals

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Keywords: horror movies, horror videos, joblo horror videos, arrow in the head, horror video, joblo horror, horror films, scary movies, horror series, wtf, review, movie review, horror movie review, joblo horror originals, AITH, john fallon, lance vlcek, horror review, horror, Night of the Living Dead (1990), Night of the Living Dead, Tony Todd, Patricia Tallman, Tom Towles, Tom Savini, night of the living dead 90, best horror movie you never saw, 2022, best horror, joblo.com, playlist

Id: mmOLDPtK09o

Length: 20min 27sec (1227 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 14 2022