Night Of The Living Dead Reanimated

What will probably be known as the most creative take on the use of public domain material ever, after "J-Men Forever" of course, Wild Eye releasing takes on George A. Romero's classic Night Of The Living Dead. Many fans will say this is a film that should never be touched, it should be left in its original form for generations to enjoy ...Well, I said that about Clash Of The Titans and we all saw what happened there...

I love the concept of NOTLD:R, it's an incredibly good idea. The mixture of hundreds of animated and illustrated styles all clashing yet working together to tell a story, and it works...in most parts.

During the course of the film you are treated to a wide array of artistic styles some amazing and some filler.

Amazing


Filler

Some scenes use true animation and some use panning shots across illustrations (story book style). Two of my favorite parts are one of the news scenes where the reporter is a thumb, ala Steve Oedekerk's many thumb cast films, and a scene where the characters were replaced with cartoon mice, Looney Tunes style. The styles change constantly at a rapid fire pace from charcoal sketches to sock puppets.
My only complaint is that I wish they were a little more selective with their choice for animators / illustrators, there are too many extremes between artists and I'm not talking about style, I'm talking about skill. In one spot you will have several shots of an amazing illustration really setting the mood Romero intended, you can tell the contributors are fans of the film, but then we cut to Barbie dolls bumping into each other or Play-doh figures sliding around the screen like Gumby covered in blood. With such a legendary Iconic film to use as a template, I would be a little more picky with who is involved in the project. Granted I'm sure there was no budget to speak of and plenty of art students looking for a chance to add to their reel or portfolio. So you roll up your sleeves and use what you have to work with I guess. Also I hate sock puppets... OK so that's two complaints.

All in all this is a great experiment and Wild eye does not chince on the extras, two hours worth of mini docs, short horror films and comics, commentary tracks and more.
Here at Lazlo's Closet we write a "Build Your Own Box Set" post every once and awhile, and I feel Night Of The Living Dead Reanimated is a perfect addition to your NOTLD collection. It's for the nerd "completeist" collector in all of us.