“Why is it okay to do a live-action adaptation of a graphic novel but not a graphic novel adaptation of a live-action film… that moves?”

Not many people realize this, but due to a clerical error George Romero’s zombie masterpiece Night of the Living Dead is in the public domain. That’s why you can find such a prestigious film slapped on public domain discs all over the land. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Night of the Living Dead has been remade, colourized, re-dubbed, converted to 3-D, and had new scenes inserted into it and packaged as a new movie. And just when you think there wasn’t any other way to tinker with the film, along comes a company planning on making an animated version.

I made my peace with the tampering of Night of the Living Dead long ago, but this is beyond the pale. While I respect Re:Naissance’s right to do this, I can’t understand why. A cartoon version of a public domain movie could be interesting if the animation brought something new to the table, like a strong graphic style or different modes of expression, but to rotoscope the entire thing with character designs that look like the original actors but uglier, well, what’s the point?

What really drives me to despair is that this project could very well be financially successful. Many of those previously mentioned Night of the Living Dead off-shoots have been snatched up by rabid horror fans, even when they know they stink. Here’s hoping sanity prevails and this abomination gets buried. Is this a train wreck at 24 frames a second, or are you looking forward to your favourite movies getting the same treatment?

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