Rebirth

Rebirth is essentially just Mr. George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, but with a few twists and changes to make it slightly different from the original. Nevertheless, Rebirth is still a good movie in and of itself, and it's entertaining to watch, even though some people might find the glowing eyes unsettling. I didn't mind, though, because it didn't detract from the plot, and I wasn't upset about Barbara being changed into a boy named Adam, played by Roger Connors, because Ben was the one who really forced himself on the story. I also liked that they didn't alter Harry, which would have been a bit too strange if they had, the harry character pushing an important subliminal message and all. In general, I liked it.

It's a remake of Night of the Living Dead. But Barbara is replaced with Adam, who seems to be based off of stereotypes of gay men from 80's comedies, and is called "boy" and "kid" (despite being in his 30s) and treated like he has an intellectual disability or something (at least Barbara was clearly in shock). Ben has been about 15% "urbanized", as evidenced by his dialogue (I miss Duane Jones, or Tony Todd channelling Mr. Jones, and wish Aswan Harris's take skewed closer to one of those). Harry's made even worse than before by making him racist and homophobic (in case it wasn't clear we're not supposed to root for him), turning a creepy guy who might be concerned for his family into a two dimensional prop. And of course, you can't have a Christian villain in a horror movie not curse, but Harry is practically a fountain of profanity (when he's not menacing our gay anti-hero). So yay? Preppy Johnnie is now Face Tat Johnnie, Helen... Helen actually gets some depth and an actress who can carry the material, and is honestly one of the few high point of the film in terms of quality and creativity. The remaining characters are just kind of there filling the original roles, with a new "not all old white men from the country are jerks" character, that otherwise serves no function than to remind the audience that not all old white men from the country are jerks (which, aside from "Tucker and Dale vs Evil" hasn't really been done much).

As for the zombies... they're slow, they're killed by headshots, they growl in a way that'd be more effective if the sound balancing was better. And their eyes glow for some unexplained reason, which I'm fine with in theory. I'm not going to argue over how many buttons a leprechaun's jacket can have, and I won't argue over whether or not fictional monsters can have glowing eyes. In practice though, I think it was done to try and help add menace to zombies compensation for their often (but not always!) mediocre make up effects. Seeing a bunch of zombie eyes "blink on" as they close to attack is almost creepy. The movies "Demons" and "Demons 2" made it work okay through practical effects, shame it looks so cheap here due to CG.

But character tweaks aside, this is the kind of zombie movie that couldn't afford zombies smashing windows (or heroes barricading said windows). The kind of film where right before the heroes open a door to see how many zombies are outside, one of them looks out the windows of said door (meanwhile, in a later scene we discover the house has a balcony, so there's that). The kind of film that really needed someone to ask the director/writer "do you really need this shot?" and "why do they throw away their torches when they know the dead are scared of fire" and "do we really need to be reminded that Adam is off screen being worthless, again?" Honestly, a good chunk could be forgiven if Ben turned to Helen and explained "I have a cousin who is gay, they just need a little help. Hey buddy, would you like a juice box? I got the straw ready for you."

Seriously though, there's some genuinely good ideas here, but the execution would've benefitted a lot by someone doing good storyboards beforehand (even stick figures are fine!), and then allowing someone to come in and challenge the weaker aspects of the film. And that's ignoring the issues due to budget limits.

...when folks who don't really know how to make movies make a movie. They end up Dunning-Krugering themselves into producing messes like "Rebirth," a scratch-and-dent remake of the seminal zombie classic, George A. Romero's "Night of the Living Dead." It's tone deaf in almost every respect, sad to say, and I have to put it on the quaking shoulders of faux auteur Roger Connors, who in writing/directing/co-producing and starring in the benighted project, has mystifyingly chosen to put a gay slant on things that plays poorly and adds nothing to the story. I'm not going to pick at the corpse; others have already done that here. I simply mean to caution potential viewers against any expectations of quality filmmaking, because you won't find any. "Rebirth" is as pure an example of Sturgeon's Revelation as you might ask.

TL/DR: Low return entertainment even if you don't value your precious, irreplaceable time.

HEY EVERBODY ITS ME, (4) and today we review ..... night of the living de ....???? Rebith of the living dead .....

SSOOOOO theres this whole thing about night of the living dead where its copyright is now up ...and its in public domain SO anyone can use the name and remake the movie etc .... so TONS of remakes and retellings and just out right films using the name etc have happened ...okay cool ...

SO this .....is one of those it seems .... only instead of barbara we have .....a gay dude ..... so i guess they are trying to bring the classic to a more modern PC era .... okay .... instead of becoming comatose however this guy just whines and cries and screams at everything ...so ....opositsies lol.... also ...annoying-isies ..... but its reall runs along the same basics as night of the living dead over all .... similar situations .... similar story .... similar characters ..... only some exagerations to them here or there ... like DR ANGRY BEARD lol..... taking the place of the angry dad from "night of" ....

being honest here i only watched about half way through before i started skipping around .... i realized .... "hey ive seen this before " and i just didnt want to waste another 45 minutes ....

from a technical standpoint ...everything seems pretty well done ... their lighting for a indie was on point ..the acting wasnt bad .... so good job ....

the FX were good EXCEPT the glowing eyes ?!?!?!!??!? Why ??????why did you feel that was needed ..... who was sitting there editing ....thinking ..and said " you knw what this needs .... REALLY terrible glowing eye FX , yea thats the ticket !!!" .... lol... NO shame on you ..and who ever greet lit it after seeing it ...slap your own hand ....shame on you as well .... the zombies would have been fine .....didnt need flashlight eyes .... like some kind of lo pan from big trouble in little china cos play tryhards ....

also the brothers in the beginning ...lol.. great omage to the original .... but jesus man ... casting the newest indie rapper "lil jonny" there ....lol.... bro ... your face got more tats than a biker rally ........ i hope your sound cloud career go good for you because man ..if it dont ..... jeez ...lol

so ...sorry gang but unoriginal gets you beat down ...underservingly though because you did a decent job BUT should have just called it for what it was ....rebirth of the living dead ....

3/10

EDIT: upon minor research ...... this is in fact a remake of the original night of the living dead and is also in fact being updated to a newer generation ... LOL ... wow ... i called it on accident .... so now how do i feel about my score is the question .....

It was too hard to take seriously when a guy keeps referring to another man his own age as "kid" and "child". This dude is at least 30 and everyone is treating him as if he is 10. Even consoling him when he sobs in fear, whining that he wants to go home. Not sure if he's supposed to be mentally handicapped and that's why? It was just funny to see and the zombies are hilariously bad with glowing eyes. The rev was a huge downer, not gonna lie, currently halfway through and can't wait for him to die. Didn't realize this was a remake, nor have I seen the original so not sure if it's supposed to be serious or funny. It's definitely funny and the acting isn't bad.