Review: Night of the Living Dead 3D: Re-Animation / Cert: 18 / Director: Jeff Broadstreet / Screenplay: Jeff Broadstreet / Starring: Andrew Divoff, Jeffrey Combs, Sarah Lieving / Release Date: Out Now

When George A Romero’s original 1968 seminal classic, Night of the Living Dead failed to have copyright correctly registered, meaning the film and its title slipped into the public domain, it opened the door for anyone to remake it or make a sequel to it. In 2006, Jeff Broadstreet released Night of the Living Dead 3D, a remake filmed in 3D. Now he has created another entry into the series, although it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly where it fits in.

Gerald Tovar Jr (Divoff) runs the family mortuary after his father passes away, and continues a side job that his father began, taking in extra bodies for cash. However, unlike his father, Gerald isn’t cremating the bodies, but instead stores them in a locked room, unaware that he is exposing them to toxic medical waste that is reanimating them. When his estranged brother, Harold (Combs) turns up, needing money after his veterinary practice has closed down, Gerald finds his problems beginning to mount.

Cadavers are starting to walk around and begin to munch on the staff. Harold is threatening to contest the will, which left most of the inheritance to Gerald. Gerald is having to deal with firing a member of staff, who is so goth, she may as well already be dead – it’s not clarified if she really is into necrophilia or not, but it’s certainly mentioned. There’s also a Sarah Palin caricature on hand as well.

There is some nice political satire on show here as well as a few very tongue in cheek references to previous outbreaks in the years that previous movies were released. However, it takes the joke a little too far when Combs asks if the zombies are quick or slow and mentions that they are Romero zombies.

This has no reason to use the Night of the Living Dead moniker, other than to cash in on it. Disappointingly, the zombies don’t even manage to escape from the mortuary. The make-up effects for the zombies are decent enough, but as with most horror films, there’s just no need for the 3D on show here. It doesn’t make the film scarier or gorier – it’s just a trick to sell more copies.

What they should have done here is utilise Divoff and Combs a lot better and give us a fresh, modern outbreak at a mortuary. Instead, we get a stale re-tread that offers little new.

Special Features: Making of Featurette, Audio Commentary with Director Jeff Broadsheet, Blooper/Outtake Reel, Producing CG Visual Effects in 3D