Night of the Living Dead

First off: I like zombie movies, I really do. I like them that much that I rent zombie movies which are almost definitely bad.

That said, I simply had to rent this. Only when I started the movie I noticed that this was NOTLD 3D, as it was just labeled "Night of the living dead" here. Even though the notion of "3D" implicated that this one would be a pretty awful remake, I simply wasn't prepared for this. It's pretty damn courageous to begin and end your film with the the opening scene of the original and also have the original running on TV during the movie when the remake is such a pile of garbage. From terrible acting over just plain awful special effects and missing wounds, everything here. The worst thing though is that the script only bears a slight resemblance of the original's story. True, it begins at a graveyard. True, at some point in the movie some guys are trapped in a house. The names of the main characters are the same. That's it. All the other things that were good about the original (and even about the first remake) are gone and replaced by a completely generic "horror" story, centered around Sid Haig. There is no reason why this movie should be called "Night of the living dead". It has nothing to do with NOTLD... well, about as much as any other zombie movie has.

Problem is: Even most really, really low-budget zombie movies I've seen were far more enjoyable than this one. Simply stay away from this one. And if you're like me and simply can't stay away from it, don't say you hadn't been warned.

This movie is a pale imitation of George Romero's original. Giving characters the same names isn't enough, pitting characters against zombies isn't enough. The 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead was outstanding, while this one fails almost completely on every level. Remember Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho and Roland Emmerich's remake of Godzilla? This turd is somewhere in between, trying to step in the footsteps of greatness, but, like a zombie, exhibiting no life of its own. This zombie movie is simply, well, dead.

I suggest you go rent the original Night of the Living Dead, or either version of Dawn of the Dead, or Return of the Living Dead or 28 Days Later. These are the zombie movies that will stand the test of time.

The dead have risen in a small town and group of people take refuge in a farmhouse weed farm.

With the original film never properly copyrighted and in the public domain director Jeff Broadstreet wastes no time in trying to cash-in with a 3D re-imagining.

This is best viewed in 2D as the 3D shots are gimmicky and are few and far between. The 1968 original appears on TVs scattered across the movie reminding you how superior it is to Broadstreet's offering. The opening is quite interesting following to the tropes of the original (the "Coming to get you, Barbara" line absurdly phoned in via text message). It has a bit of atmosphere but over all its all tongue and cheek stuff, suffering from a TV feel and low budget production values. It's on par with its 2012 follow up Night of the Living Dead 3D: Re-Animation but not a touch on Tom Savini's superb Night of the Living Dead (1990).

Horror character actor Sid Haig appears but even with its short running time and Brianna Brown, Johanna Black and Cristin Michele it's still totally forgettable.

This movie is truly an insult to George Romero. The acting and the zombie effect were barely above normal but the story is so weak. It's essentially a zombie movie taking place in a pot farm. The pot humors aren't funny at all and they never ever gotten around to barricading the windows.

Yes, they added nudity but was that remotely necessary?

The ending was also very weak with Barb just standing there even though she was holding a gun and could have run. They had a perfectly good movie from which to base this movie on and they still managed to botch it up. I really do wonder about all these direct-to-DVD horror movies that have no reasons for being made and can only trick people into buying because there are no reviews.

Some movies suck and others suck the life out of the fabric of the universe -- the latter is true for Night of the Living Dead 3D. High school talent show level acting, oatmeal face makeup, and dialog written in crayola on construction paper, NOTLD 3D has everything except for charm, wit, or that occasional saving grace of 'B' film, unintentional humor. Look! It's bad acting in 3-Dimensions, rather than the plain ole two we mere mortals are stuck with until the holo-projectors show up in the cineplex.

On a scale of one to ten, -200 would seem a fair score, but I feel IMDb needs a more quantitative rating system for films that defy rating - The Gigli Scale. The higher a film rates on the Gigli Scale, the more soul-sucking, time and space fabric ripping it is. While only Gigli currently scores a perfect ten on the Gigli Scale, Night of the Living Dead 3D certainly is a worthy contender to dethroning the current world champion of suck.