Night of the Living Dead

A remake of the 1968 Night of the Living Dead. Romero wrote the screenplay himself, and the director is Tom Savini, the make-up and effects man behind the original cycle. Rewriting his own film, Romero changed one thing fundamentally: Barbara. The character who froze in shock and barely spoke in the original opens here with the men in the house assuming she is helpless, then handles the house and herself better than any of them and picks up a shotgun. It is both the film's best idea and its most argued-over one. Tony Todd plays Ben, Patricia Tallman is Barbara and Tom Towles is Harry Cooper. Savini said years later that only about thirty percent of what he wanted reached the screen. The film first drew an X; to get an R the gore was trimmed, exploding heads and extended violence cut. Producer interference had already begun before shooting. Who it is for: viewers who know the original and want to see the same story rebuilt from another angle. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a bloodbath from Savini. That is precisely its flaw: a film made by an effects master with the effects taken out.