Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated (2009)
Directed By: Mike Schneider
Reviewer: Chuck Conry

The Prologue
There’s a good and bad to George A Romero’s Night of the Living Dead being in the public domain. The good is anyone can try to get their own version of the film out there and the bad being, well..that anyone can try to get their own version of the film out there. Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated on paper was a very good and creative idea.
Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated on film however turned out not to be soo great.
It’s safe to say the folks behind this animated tracing of the classic horror film took a giant swing for the fences with it, but sadly I do believe they missed the ball by a mile.

The Movie
Let me just take the story for this one right off the pages of
IMDB..Night of the Living Dead: REANIMATED features the work of various artists, animators, and filmmakers from around the globe. The mixed media featured include puppetry, CGI, hand-drawn animation, illustration, acrylics, claymation, and even ‘animated’ tattoos, just to name a few. This mass-collaboration approach is less about remaking Romero’s film and more about viewing the classic through an experimental lens. Instead of trying to alter Image Ten’s work, NOTLD:R seeks to showcase the responses that artists from around the world have had to this landmark film.
Okay, now that you got all of that allow me to just say that while this film does indeed have pretty much every animation under the sun, some of which very cool and fun, other forms of the animation or just eye numbingly bad. Some of this art is so bad you can’t even make out what is going on on the screen and to top that off it gave me a headache. Again, I’m not saying it’s all bad because had they been a lot more picky with what they used this could have turned out really well.
Also while I hate to nitpick about things, this movie often times uses still pictures and it’s the same result as if you’ve listened to a movie while looking at the storyboard. That somewhat came across as lazy to me but to each their own. One key thing to remember is that the movie uses the same audio from the real movie, one blessing of the lack of copyright on that classic film. A blessing because at times if you didn’t have it you’d be unaware just where in the movie you are by the animation on the screen.
While I know your dealing with over 150 different artist and over 100 plus different animation styles some of this art makes me ask if these folks have ever seen this movie before?? Thanks to cuts (and there’s a LOT) between the different styles of art we go from Ben (just for example because it’s like this with everyone) at times looking like we all remember to Ben looking nothing like we remember, I even believe he’s white for a time in on animation..unacceptable! Also at times the different takes on it once again look nothing like how it should, and while that may be fine and dandy if it was on it’s own it sticks out like a sore thumb when mixed with stuff looking like more of what we
all remember from the movie.
While the end result of this thing isn’t what you’d hope for kudos do have to be given to the people behind it for trying very hard to make a creative new take on the classic film. Also I tip my hate to the guys who had to edit all of this together as I’m sure that job took a few years off their lives. What you get with Night of the Living Dead Reanimated is a great idea gone bad. Had they cut out the more “out there” and abstract stuff and just kept the more pure and true animation that stuck with the original concept you’d still have succeeded in creating what you set out to make, but you’d have ended up with a much nicer and better product in the end.

The Conclusion
One of the more creative ideas I’ve seen when it comes to re-creating Night of the Living Dead but a great idea that has went really wrong due to how the final product turns out. Honestly, I see even the biggest fans of the movie having a hard time making it through this one.
That being said, if you are a hardcore Night of the Living Dead fan I can’t say the DVD coming soon from Wild Eye Releasing will be a total waste as it will be packed with tons of cool extras that may even be worth the price more so than the actual film is.

The Rating (3.5/10)