Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated

If you have not seen George Romero's original 'Night of the Living Dead' you must be living in a coffin. This "reanimated" vision, or version, is a "collaborative artistic mash-up" (according to the press release supplied to me by MVD Entertainment Group) of the cult classic film originally released in 1968. Approximately 150 artists and animators chose their favorite scenes from 'Night of the Living Dead' and artistically "remastered" them. NOTLD:R, as it is called by fans, is set to the original movie's soundtrack.

The DVD begins with a special introduction by horror guest host Gore De Vol. Then, the mayhem and art begins. "He's coming to get you Barbara!" And, with this classic line the zombie killings begin- in black and white, artistic fashion, designed by many different artists in many different mediums.

NOTLD:R includes sketches, paintings, sock puppets, CGI and so much more. One of my favorites, less than fifteen minutes into the film, was a muppet-like zombie who was trying to get into the car with a brick to the window. Crazy clay-mation ensues as we enter an empty house in search of safety from the flesh-eating zombies.

The video game-like portions of NOTLD:R were also some of my favorite parts. In all this idea was mostly creative, yet somewhat strange. I found myself wondering how the makers, Wild Eye Releasing, went about choosing the artists that would be featured in the film. Though I, as an art lover, was impressed with about fifty percent of the artwork within, the other half was generally either hard to grasp or looked like it had been drawn by a four year old.

With that being said, I would not oppose to seeing other cult classic films turned into collaborations of art such as this. One movie that comes to mind that I think would be interesting to see would be 'Evil Dead'. I really think that an artistic Ash (played by Bruce Campbell), and all of the evil that he encounters along the way, would be very clever to watch!

Mostly, watching this creative version of 'Night of the Living Dead' made me want to watch the original film and the entire George Romero zombie collection of movies. NOTLD:R is definitely something that any true Romero fan, horror movie lover, or art lover would enjoy viewing, at least once. Art and artistic vision is a glorious thing and I highly recommend this to the people I mentioned above!

Also included on this DVD are several short films, more information on the many artistic contributors, alternative and deleted scenes and even behind the scenes of the animation process used to make the movie. There is actually over two hours of interesting and somewhat educational (in a zombie sort of way) bonus features.

Sources:

MVD Entertainment Group- mvdb2b.com