Night of the Animated Dead is now available for digital purchase and will be available on Blu-ray and DVD on Oct. 5.
Why would anyone make an animated version of Night of the Living Dead? That's the resounding question which immediately comes to mind when hearing that someone's done just that. There's an easy and historically interesting answer to that question: Night of the Living Dead is in the public domain. That means that anyone can adapt, remake, or reimagine it with absolutely no payment to the studio, creator, or his estate. How did it come to be that one of the most famous zombie movies in the world doesn't belong to anyone?
Well, that would be because the studio didn't correctly copyright the reels of the original movie before sending them to theaters with the updated title Night of the Living Dead. This mistake is arguably one of the reasons it’s so famous, being able to live on in a way that most studio movies don’t, but it’s also one of cinema’s greatest travesties. Why is this relevant to Night of the Animated Dead, the new take on the classic George A. Romero zombie flick? Obviously, this movie wouldn't exist without that mistake. And, sadly, it does absolutely nothing to justify its own existence. Instead, it's a tired retread that weakens the impact of the original without adding anything of value including, most importantly, good animation.
That's the most frustrating thing about Night of the Animated Dead. It boasts an impressive cast including horror favorite Katharine Isabelle as Barbara and Dule Hill taking on Duane Jones' iconic role of Ben. It's an exciting prospect, remaking this powerful and terrifying movie in 2021. Not only is it still thematically relevant, but there's so much stunning animation out there that it seems surprising no one has properly done it before. Of course, the fact that this comes from Warner Bros. hints that we might get an inventive and slickly animated vision. Alas, that is not the case. We get animation that's barely more than a motion comic, with stiff movement, lack of emotion, and flat coloring that lessen the impact of the story and terror at every turn.
This is a direct almost shot-for-shot remake — bar from one sequence that was only described in the original — but in case you haven't seen the Romero classic (which you should rectify), here are the basics. Barbara and her brother, Johnny, are in a graveyard when, low and behold, the very ghouls that Johnny was always teasing Barbara about appear in real life and begin to feast on his flesh. It's a brilliantly simple opening that leads to a group of disparate survivors trying to live through the night in a boarded-up house. It doesn't go well for anyone as they're besieged by the living dead and some just plain living folks too.
Director Jason Axinn recently spoke to The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about his vision for the movie. "It's essentially a way to make a classic more accessible to modern audiences. … This is in color and there's a lot more gore and violence. But we wanted to make sure it's still 'Night of the Living Dead.'" It definitely is still Night of the Living Dead. In fact, at moments it seems like the film was just traced from frames of the original movie. This quote also explains why the movie doesn't work. Romero's original film is all about creeping dread, paranoia, and fear. It doesn't need added gore or to be in color; also, a colorized version already exists. And the concept of making the story more accessible by rereleasing a version that viewers have to pay a $14.99 premium for when anyone can legally watch the original for free on YouTube seems… misguided.
That much-talked-about added gore also leads to the film's worst choice. Romero's original movie ends with one of the most impactful deaths in cinema. After surviving the night and the zombies, Jones' Ben is shot dead by a police officer. It's brutal and heartbreaking, and it's also wildly frustrating, as we know that if the others had listened to Ben, they too might have survived. The obvious relevance and power of a horror movie that ends with an innocent Black man being murdered by the police has never been lost on horror fans. But Axxin and his team treat it as a moment for exploitation. They brutalize Ben's body as the movie comes to a close. Whereas Romero slickly used still photography to hint at Ben's gruesome fate after he's shot, here it's laid out in detailed technicolor motion. It's a choice that muddies the power of the original ending and feels almost grotesque in its execution.
It's easy to understand in a post-torture porn and The Walking Dead age why people might think that gore is an easy way to reinvigerate a zombie classic. But Night of the Living Dead is a classic for a reason. It also doesn't help that incredible animated shows like Invincible have shown us how to do brutal and emotionally driven cartoon horror with impact. Ultimately, Night of the Animated Dead pales in comparison to the incredible quality of animation that we're used to in movies and TV now. As a remake, it weakens the original and does nothing to make itself stand out. Just watch Romero's 1968 Night of the Living Dead, because thanks to a fateful studio mistake, it's streaming for free forever.