Whereas Zack Snyder's recent remake of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead utilised only the bare bones of the original's script, Tom Savini's 90s version of Romero's Night of the Living Dead took far fewer liberties with its plot, opening almost exactly like the '68 horror classic—with a brother and sister being attacked by the undead in a rural graveyard—and rarely straying from the original for the rest of its duration (bar a few subtle tweaks to keep things interesting).<br /><br />However, although the film will undoubtedly feel extremely familiar to fans of the 'Dead' series, there is still much to enjoy about Savini's effort, and it is highly recommended viewing nonetheless.<br /><br />Patricia Tallman plays Barbara, a young woman who seeks refuge in a farmhouse after the dead begin returning to life to devour the living. She is soon joined by natural leader Ben (Candyman's Tony Todd), who snaps Babs out of her catatonic state and begins to formulate a plan for survival. Problems arise, however, when more survivors emerge from the cellar and personalities begin to clash.<br /><br />Savini's direction is workmanlike, but certainly does the trick as far as delivering the scares. Surprisingly, he doesn't allow gore to overpower the action, preferring to concentrate on characterisation and atmosphere instead (in fact, what little bloodletting there is tends to be rather restrained and those seeking excessive amounts of entrail eating would be better off looking elsewhere).<br /><br />The cast are uniformly excellent, with Todd and Tallman making likable heroes, and Tom Towles being throughly despicable as a cowardly father; even the zombies are very good, with their awkward undead shuffling being quite convincing (so many films in this genre fail thanks to laughable zombie movements, don'tcha think?). The make-up is also rather nifty, with the ghouls sporting not-too-OTT dead complexions and hideous milky eyes, and several of the corpses featuring some nice individual touches (there's a drug-addict corpse with a needle in its arm, and one with a knife in his chest).<br /><br />After plenty of exciting action, and some knuckle biting fracases between bickering blokes, Savini closes his film with a twist ending that differs slightly from Romero's original, but delivers just as much of a punch to the gut.<br /><br />This version of Night of the Living Dead might not have been absolutely necessary, but considering that so many remakes end up being rather disappointing, fans of zombie films should be grateful that this one ended up in the hands of someone so knowledgeable and reverent of the genre. Thanks Tom! 8.5 out of 10, rounded up to 9 for IMDb.