Another 3D Re-imagining of Night of the Living Dead

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The Hollywood Reporter is uhhh...reporting that another 3D take on Romero's Night of the Living Dead is in the works, but this time using super special CG 3D! Holy shit, my ticket is done paid for! Sorry to be blunt, but at this point who gives an honest damn? Romero's creation has been put through the proverbial gristmill of greedy profiteers so much the situation can't get any worse. Most reading this know of the film's extensive copyright (or lack thereof) saga and the endless glut of dollar store copies. I can't include the 1990 Savini remake since it was more a (sadly failed) attempt at recouping some of the millions lost in the original's public domain debacle.

Then we get the original's co-writer, John A. Russo, essentially pissing on the classic with two apocalyptic abominations known as the "30th Anniversary Edition" (my ass) and the "Survivor's Cut." Some readers long familiar with me know of my complete disdain for this monkey on Romero's back. Russo is nothing more than a man bitter of Romero's immense status in the genre who continually tries desperately to remind people of his association with George A. Romero's film. He did write the Return of the Living Dead novel, which Dan O'Bannon had to extensively alter in screenplay form so it wouldn't be so much like Night, but these two self-congratulatory and uncaring re-cuts damned the man in my eyes. John A. Russo co-wrote Night of the Living Dead? Really? Nah, no he didn't, he wrote Santa Claws. It was horrible.

The agony only furthered with a pseudo afterword, Children of the Living Dead, a film so awful the director actually posted a public apology on the 'net a few months after its DVD release (blaming the domineering writer). Then a 3D re-do of the original hit DVD, one with a laugh track, a newly colorized version, and another hosted by Elvira (okay, not so bad). Sid Haig stunk up the legacy even more with the needless Night of the Living Dead 3D a few years ago. Night of the Giving Head, the inevitable porn spoof, arrived last year. An animated rendition utilizing the original's audio track is expected later this year.

Good has come from the 1968 film's constant stay in the movie fan lexicon, like the multiple restorations and its 1999 induction into the Library of Congress Film Registry, so ultimately I see this new 3D money grab, as Sheriff McClelland famously said, "another one for the fire."

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