Night of the Living Dead: Darkest Dawn

So, the primary complaints I've read about this film all have to do with the low quality of the animation, and, well...they're not wrong. For a film that was released post- 2005, the animation is decidedly unimpressive. The art itself isn't bad, but...it's also not fantastic.

As for the script and acting, I'd give this a solid 9/10. The score is equally impressive, and does a fantastic job of ratcheting up the suspense. Although definitely faster- paced than the Romero 1969 original, were it a live-action film, it would be right at home with some of the more recent zombie fare.

It is without a doubt better than the woeful Day of the Dead remake from the mid-00s, being both better-written and better-acted. Giving some of the characters better backstories definitely helped to build a better rapport with them, and you end up caring for them, save for Hank Cooper, for whom no one has ever cared.

Overall, it's definitely worth watching if you're a fan of the genre, though you most certainly have to get past the unimpressive animation.

This would have been possibly impressive if it was fan made. A bunch of people, getting together and deciding to do yet another sequel/stand alone movie of the legendary series with what they could afford.

But it wasn't the case, the ones involved in the making of this production are important people and I would have expected more. The beginning of the movie is rather hard to swallow, as the graphic switches from color to color, to a lot of flashes and the close ups on the characters reveal the weak graphics used. Some may praise it I guess, I for one was seriously irritated by it.

The plot is not bad, of course, as common as possibly, I do believe that the series gave away its last coup of milk, I was actually kept there, in front of the screen but when it all ended, I felt more frustrated than anything. I won't recommend it unless you are a die fan of the series. I don't know what they wanted to prove. Yet again.

Cheers!

Night of the Living Dead: Darkest Dawn (2015)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

This here is an animated remake of the George A. Romero classic. This time the setting has been moved from a farmhouse in Pennsylvania to an apartment in New York City where Barbara (Danielle Harris), Ben (Tony Todd) and others lock themselves in and try to survive the night.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: DARKEST DAWN isn't the worst remake that has happened but at the same time there are some major issues with it that keep it from being more entertaining. I will at least say that I give the filmmakers credit for at least trying to change a few things up including the location. I thought having the action in New York City was a major plus and especially some of the scenes on Time Square. There were a few more changes to the familiar story, which was nice to have.

With that said, there are certainly a lot more flaws than good moments here. One major issue is that the CGI animation just looks really bad. This looks like a low-budget video game and some of the images are just downright ugly including the look of Ben who seems like a cross between a mummy and a zombie. The vocal performances are decent for the most part but Joseph Pilato (DAY OF THE DEAD) is horrid as Harry as he does nothing but scream the entire time (sound familiar?).

I guess if you're a horror nut like me who wants to watch every new "version" of the Romero film then you'll want to check this out. Most people, however, should just go back and watch the original film and leave this one alone.

Honestly, if you're here reading reviews, your chances of actually liking this movie are probably going to drop... all I see is people bashing this movie left and right, and what's most frustrating is that it's all the same one or two superficial complaints so they give it a 3 star review...

Okay, yes the graphics look like a cut scene from a PlayStation 2 game. But so what? People played those games and didn't complain and turn them off because of it. For the last 20 years, video games have begun resembling long, interactive movies anyway, so just accept it and move on.. if you sit and dwell and focus on that the whole time, you're just going to make yourself hate it.

Chances are, those people complaining are fans of the Marvel movies or are going to see the new Mortal Kombat, and THOSE are the movies I just can't enjoy because of the CGI. Most of the movie, the heroes and villains on screen aren't the actor, it's some digital rendering of the character. And to me, that's literally one small step above having actual cartoons superimposed over real-life backgrounds. Like I just couldn't take the movie seriously anymore when I see Kano kicking and punching the air, trying to make it look realistic that he's fighting a computer generated 6 foot tall lizard creature that just doesn't look the least bit real.

The voice acting is way better than most of the serious animated movies/shows or video games I've seen bc these are actual actors rather than just voices actors. They just never sound natural to me... And the atmosphere was better than I expected. Even tho it's CG, it is still a film so the fact that they did well with tension, mood, scenery, "camera-angles", etc really added to it... it actually had me feeling tense and uneasy thru most of it.

And most importantly, what people tend to miss focusing on the superficial, is story. If all these scenes were translated exactly into a real life film, this would be an excellent "remake". I guess after getting accustomed to the movies released today, paying attention to story has kind of fallen into the background in favor of "action for the sake of action", mindless slapstick comedy, or simplistic jump scares... tropes without any actual thought behind them. Studios figure the best way to cater to everyone is to go as simple and shallow as possible so as not to "exclude" anyone... so we get our Wedding Crashers', John Wick's, and endless horror remakes without the original feeling and emotion behind them. George Romero had depth and meaning behind the story he told with the original NOTLD in 68, and thankfully, a lot of that is retained here.

Go into this focusing solely on the story being told, and use your imagination a bit like people had to do before the advent of computer special effects, I promise you will enjoy this.

After i read a couple of the reviews on this movie i decided to give it a try. Worst decision ever. Convinced those reviews were left by people that had a part of this horrible movie.

Had every horrible cliché of the zombie genre crammed into this short animated movie. Not joking, it literally had every cliché imaginable somehow jammed in.

You'd have more fun watching a "Let's Play" on YouTube of Left 4 Dead instead of this movie. The graphics would be 300x better if you did. If this was a class project of some college kids i'd give it a solid 8/10 but this had a budget of 800k?!?! Where was the money used!!? Avoid at all costs.