5/10
Night of the ... are you kidding me?
13 March 2012
I must say that I was rather excited when I first saw the information about this movie being in the making and I was anxiously awaiting it. Why? Well first of all, I am a huge fan of zombies and "Night of the Living Dead" is the groundbreaking milestone within the genre. Plus it also have Jeffrey Combs on the list of cast, and I admire his work in the horror genre.

Having seen the movie, I sit here somewhat baffled. I have a terrible sensation of having been disappointed and cheated out of something grand. Perhaps I just had way too high expectations for this movie, because it fell short of delivering anything that I was expecting.

I wonder why the movie got the title that it did, because it really didn't have much to do with the original "Night of the Living Dead" movie, except for tossing the occasional reference that true zombie fans will pick up on. Sure, it was taking place at the same location, but in overall, this movie might as well just had been titled "Re-Animation", because it didn't really bring enough with it to be worthy of a place in the Romero series.

Storywise, "Night of the Living Dead: Re-Animation" didn't really offer much of a solid story to hold on to. There was given a very vague explanation to the cause of the zombie outbreak, but it wasn't a very plausible one, and I didn't buy into it. Plus, I would have liked to seen a more thorough tie-in to the original "Night of the Living Dead" movie. But hey, I had perhaps just too high hopes and expectations for this particular movie.

As for the cast. Well I was thrilled to see Jeffrey Combs in a zombie movie, although I have to say that his performance in this movie is far from his best. A second iconic horror actor, Andrew Divoff, has the lead role in the movie, and he actually does keep the movie afloat. Without him, the movie would have been less than the mediocre result it was.

There wasn't really a lot of zombies in the movie, and the ones that was there had far from enough screen-time, and you hardly got to see any cool zombie make-up and special effects. Which was a major disappointment, especially in 2012 where effects and CGI should be almost a household item. And as for gore, well there was very little of that too in "Night of the Living Dead: Re-Animation".

One of the better parts of this movie was the various hints and references to other zombie movies. Some were blunt and in your face, while others were more subtle, leaving it up to real zombie aficionados to locate and point them out.

Oh, and you just got to love the scene where Gerald Tovar, Jr. is shooting zombies in the crematorium with the shotgun. Classic Hollywood moment there, as he doesn't reload, and the shotgun fires off way over 20 shots. Actually I counted 29 in total, so that was pretty awesome. Hooray for Hollywood firearms.

For a 2012 zombie movie, "Night of the Living Dead: Re-Animation" was a rather dull and mediocre experience. My hopes and expectations for this movie was shut down pretty fast. Having seen it, I am fairly certain that this particular zombie movie is not one that I will be making a second watching of.
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