Critic Reviews

No breasts. Twenty-one dead bodies. Exploding pickup. Exploding supporting actors. Neck-crunching. Zombie corral. Zombie target practice. Zombie bonfire. Eighteen gallons of blood. A 74 on the Vomit Meter. Kung Fu. Zombie Fu. [2 Nov 1990, p.13]

[A] witty, entertaining remake.

While this "Night" hasn't the chilling, almost cinema-verite credibility of the original, it is certainly a well-sustained entertainment, with one foolish or unlucky incident triggering another. Like the original, this R-rated production is definitely not for children. [19 Oct 1990, p.F1]

So yeah, if you can’t tell already, my giddiness has by this point evaporated, but my staunch belief in this muddled little gem has not yet substantially wavered.

Though the broad outlines of the plot are the same - a disparate group of human survivors takes desperate refuge in a Pennsylvania farmhouse while waves of flesh-eating zombies roll up from the surrounding countryside - the characters have been deepened and the thematic emphasis shifted. [19 Oct 1990, p.C]

'Night' is the kind of horror movie where a zombie puts his hand through a window, grabs the hero's face with a decayed hand and fellows in the audience laugh, knowingly. The laugh I can understand. The "knowingly" part I don't even want to think about it...As horror movies go, it's a little better than average. [22 Oct 1990, p.F1]

Savini seems to lose his grip in the second half, and what began as exhilaratingly horrendous settles into comfortable predictability. [24 Oct 1990]

Don't waste time by drawing comparisons between Romero's black-and-white original and Savini's spoofy vision. Romero's work, shocking at the time mostly because of its extreme gore and bleak finale, seems dated and narrow when viewed now. Savini's Night of the Living Dead, with its phosphorescent colors and loopy, frenetic pacing, is vastly more entertaining. [19 Oct 1990, p.12]

The film can't simply be discounted as a skim job on the original; Romero's dark social commentary, which grew in impact over his entire Dead trilogy, is still very much present here, even if it no longer has the same bite and urgency.

The story faithfully follows the original except for the bonehead decision to replace the ending with a ‘meaningful’ twist that reeks of pretentiousness.