Night of the Living Dead '90

[EvilNed]

I recently rewatched this and it's part of the canon, so why the hell not give it some love - or hate.

I don't find this film to be all that good, for a number of reasons. There are both pros and cons with it.
Tom Savini is not an excellent director. The style doesn't really hold together, I feel. The zombies are not coherent, they act a bit different from scene to scene - or zombie to zombie. Numerous times I feel like they're not really a threat either, they take one some of the more ravenous attitudes from Day of the Dead but they hold back and linger whenever the scene suits it.

Also, as Barbara points out, they are so incredibly slow that they really don't feel all that dangerous... I guess this is a plot point in the film, but whenever I rewatch it I kinda feel how she's right. They should have just gone for it and I don't see why Ben didn't go along with it. Because of the wounded girl, I guess?

Two more things, the acting isn't great. It's not bad, but everyone overacts. There's just no realism to their reactions. Cooper is over the top. The only one who really pulls it off is Tony Todd. I can't fault the actors all the way, though, because they were giving it their best and it's the directors job to take them down. Lastly - the music. It's awful. Don't even want to talk about it, but it's awful.

On a positive note: The film looks gorgeous. One of the best looking zombie films out there. SFX wise and photography! It could have been one of the best ones out there had it been helmed by someone else, I feel.

[beat_truck]

NOTLD '90 isn't perfect, but I have always really liked it and though it was overall well done. Some of the acting is slightly overdone, especially Judy Rose's constant screaming.:rolleyes: That was my only major complaint about the movie. I had no real issue with the soundtrack. It is definitely different, but works OK.

I wouldn't be too hard on Savini. The MPAA supposedly had him by the balls, and made filming difficult for him the whole way through. He did the best he could, and had never directed before.

NOTLD '90 will always have a special place with me because it was the first zombie movie I ever saw. I'm fairly sure it was on Joe Bob Briggs MonsterVision on TNT. I think Return of the Living Dead was on either the same week of not long after, because I recorded them both on the same VHS tape.:D That was back when there weren't 500 channels, but TV was actually worth watching.:(

[shootemindehead]

I quite like Night 90.

If I do a marathon of Night, Dawn, Day and Land, it's that version that gets put on nowadays. The original 68 Night will always be a classic, even more so now that I rediscovered it on the Criterion Blu, but the time slip effect is a big issue and that doesn't happen with Night 90. Not to the same jarring degree anyway.

My only real issue with Savini's NofLD is that it was severely neutered by the MPAA, as it was made during the worst decade for horror. Savini even held back on the gore because he knew he was going to get stick off of them, but they still insisted on cuts, the wankers. Sure, it's not a brilliant movie, but it's decent enough.

[Neil]

I quite like Night 90.

If I do a marathon of Night, Dawn, Day and Land, it's that version that gets put on nowadays. The original 68 Night will always be a classic, even more so now that I rediscovered it on the Criterion Blu, but the time slip effect is a big issue and that doesn't happen with Night 90. Not to the same jarring degree anyway.

My only real issue with Savini's NofLD is that it was severely neutered by the MPAA, as it was made during the worst decade for horror. Savini even held back on the gore because he knew he was going to get stick off of them, but they still insisted on cuts, the wankers. Sure, it's not a brilliant movie, but it's decent enough.

Agreed... It's a solid addition. It's sort of as if Day of the Dead had a child with the original Night :)

[MinionZombie]

Pretty fair assessment there, Ned.

Also, yes, Judy Rose ... ... tbh, the main reason I don't re-watch Night '90 all that often. Her character sways so aggressively from incessant, useless screaming to idiotic gung-ho brashness and back again, that it's just exhausting.

I do like that Barbara has more of a head on her shoulders and that it was done in a time long before Twitter, so we didn't get inundated with a bunch of think pieces and self-important identity politics blabbermouths harping on about the evolution of Barbara getting in the way of the actual material on-screen.

Music ... yeah ... it's slightly ... ... lacking in strength? It has a weird vibe to the sound, kinda weak maybe? Mind you, I do quite like the closing credits music, which has always been the highlight of the score by far.

Gore ... yeah, a real shame that it was already neutered and then hacked off again by the ruddy MPAA. However, the style of the zombies themselves was quite cool, with the milky eyes and the slightly larger ears for the zombies that had been corpses for a longer time. There's some pretty nifty ones, too, like the cemetery zombie whose pristine suit (albeit cut up the back) falls off once his feet start tugging on it. Or the lady zombie with a baby doll in her arms. Or Uncle Rege, etc. There's some really cool looking zombies in the film, and visually the film has a nice feel to it ... even if the cemetery scene feels a smidge too bright or televisual at times.

It's been a long old while since I saw it. I should give it another spin some time.

[EvilNed]

I am very harsh on this film maybe because it's been so lauded in our little community? But the more I watch it the more I don't like it... But as you say Shootem it does hold up better when compared to the original in terms of production value. It fits in neater with a marathon of all the four, and next time I do another one of those (Haven't done for at least a decade) I might do just what you say and start with the remake. I don't know.

MZ, I don't mind Judy that much to be honest. She's not good at all, but I can stand her overacting since it's sort of in tune with the rest of the picture. I find myself annoyed more and more with Harry Cooper myself. His little theatrical mannerisms just strike me as so... acted and fake.

Don't mind the lack of gore really... But I would pay good money to see that workprint, that's for sure.

Lastly - the ending tune is neat. I'm mostly talking about the very low quality suspense music thrown in throughout.

[shootemindehead]

I've met women like Judy Rose, so she never struck me as unrealistic at all.

And, as much as I like Tom Towles, he'll never beat Karl Hardman in the role. The more I watch NotLD '68, the more I like Hardmann. In fact, I think he's my fave character in the original film. I've also discovered a new found respect for Marilyn Eastman as Helen Cooper, a character I always just washed over before.

[EvilNed]

I've met women like Judy Rose, so she never struck me as unrealistic at all.

And, as much as I like Tom Towles, he'll never beat Karl Hardman in the role. The more I watch NotLD '68, the more I like Hardmann. In fact, I think he's my fave character in the original film. I've also discovered a new found respect for Marilyn Eastman as Helen Cooper, a character I always just washed over before.

Agreed! I can understand where Karl Hardman's Cooper is coming from. I have sympathy for him and he doesn't strike me as petty. Tom Towles' Cooper is borderline psychotic in his acting.

[shootemindehead]

Agreed! I can understand where Karl Hardman's Cooper is coming from. I have sympathy for him and he doesn't strike me as petty. Tom Towles' Cooper is borderline psychotic in his acting.

Cooper is still a wanker in the '68 show, but I understand that he's nervous and fearful for his daughter. He's not a nice individual, in any case though, and turns into the worst kind of snivelling coward at the end. But he's got some depth.

Harry in the 1990 version is all Yo-Yo's. But that's as much due to Savini's limits as a director as much as Towles limits as an actor.

I still like him though.

[beat_truck]

Don't mind the lack of gore really... But I would pay good money to see that workprint, that's for sure.

I have it, and I wouldn't pay much to see it.

It has some little bits of extra dialogue and a different score lifted from other horror movies including The Evil Dead. The beginning where they drive up to the cemetery is longer, but not that much more interesting.

Here is basically all the extra gore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p58GF4Ekov0
I think the scene in the kitchen where Ben puts the tire iron through the zombie's head and it breaks the door glass may be slightly longer, too.

If you really want to see it, the workprint can be "acquired" on the 'net. I imagine you know where.:sneaky:

Edit: Here is most of the beginning and some other little gore bits, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6KDCGobDG4

[EvilNed]

Thanks. I realize I've seen that before. I keep forgetting because it's quite forgetteable. Only the head being blown off is noteworthy.

[shootemindehead]

Makes you wonder why the MPAA got their knickers in twist over it. Especially when Cronenberg gave us, arguably, the most graphic head explosion ever put on film ten years previously.

[wayzim]

I always view it as Romero and crew recouping the lost revenue from the original(because of the copyright debacle which put NOTLD 68 immediately into pubic domain upon release. Just for those few who still need to know this), so then I can just sit back and enjoy. :D

[Moon Knight]

Even with the flaws and lack of gore, I love NotLD 90.

Never understood why the violence was watered down, it wasn’t even that extreme.

[MinionZombie]

Makes you wonder why the MPAA got their knickers in twist over it. Especially when Cronenberg gave us, arguably, the most graphic head explosion ever put on film ten years previously.


Even with the flaws and lack of gore, I love NotLD 90.

Never understood why the violence was watered down, it wasn’t even that extreme.

It's interesting to look at the history of gore in American films during that period around the 1980s. At the start of the decade you've already had Dawn of the Dead released unrated to huge success, then Friday the 13th and Maniac come along with extreme gore and MPAA rated R, then you get a slew of gory slashers. A few years of that and by the mid-80s they're trimming more and more out and really coming after horror and slasher films specifically. Just look at how much neutering the Friday the 13th franchise got over the years. By the time you get to 5 and 6 they're getting a fair bit trimmed out, and then 7 and 8 were just butchered by the MPAA with no thought by the studio to preserving the excised material.

So, after ten years of horror movie gore, the MPAA were all tangled up in their twisted knickers. I'm sure that the MPAA went after Night '90 harder because of Tom Savini's involvement, likely as some pissy-arsed way to get back at him for all the gore he splashed on screen throughout the 1980s.

I've also read that Savini was going through some personal troubles at the time (a divorce, IIRC?), so that maybe had some impact on the project to some degree - although the MPAA probably had the greater impact.

It's funny because, indeed, what was getting hacked out then for being too grotesque is quite tame/normal compared to mainstream basic cable television shows. The Walking Dead routinely gets away with stuff far in excess of anything in Night '90. Quite right, too - it's only a movie (or TV show), it's only a movie (or TV show), it's only...