Children Of The Living Dead DVD Review

Title: Children Of The Living Dead

Region: One

Genre: Horror

Stars: Tom Savini, Martin Schiff, Damien Luvara, Jamie McCoy, Sam Nicotero, Heidi Hinzman, Tom Stoviak, Philip Bower, and A. Barrett Worland

Writer: Karen Lee Wolf

Director: Tor A. Ramsey

Feature length: 90 minutes

Extras: Trailers and a Photo Gallery

Languages: English Dolby Digital 5.1 and English Dolby Stereo

Subtitles: English Captions and Closed Captions and Spanish Subtitles

Packaging: Amaray Keep Case

Chapter Stops: 16

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and Stereo Sound

Year of DVD Release: 2001

Home Video Distributor: Artisan Home Entertainment

MPAA Rating: R

Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera

1986, we see a posse shooting zombies down left and right outside Pittsburgh, PA near a farm. Among them is acclaimed make-up effects guru, stunt coordinator, and genre veteran Tom Savini, kicking undead ass all over the place until after freeing a group of children trapped in a barn, he is wounded by a sentient zombie and is executed by a cowardly police officer since anyone bitten by a zombie is doomed to become one unless they are shot in the head.

14 years later, a group of teenagers, survivors of the barn incident are driving near the farm and all appears normal until the very same sentient zombie appears and causes the teenagers to drive off of a cliff to their death. We soon learn this same evil ghoul goes by the name of Abbott Hayes and for some reason has been hanging around the farm undisturbed, but still very much undead and for some reason he is the only zombie that is sentient. Soon the land is sold to a car dealership, whose owner wants to remove any dead bodies that are buried in the cemetery, which is conveniently on the farm grounds, to a mass grave to save money on truly relocating the bodies somewhere else individually. Abbott Hayes reanimates the bodies of the teenagers he scared to death and starts a new plague of zombies that wreck havoc upon everyone.

I had high hopes that this unofficial entry in the series started by George A. Romero in 1968 with the horror classic “Night Of The Living Dead” would be a film good enough that I would put it alongside my DVD collection next to the original “Dead Trilogy” that includes “Dawn Of The Dead” and “Day Of The Dead”, but no such luck. I have read it and heard it before and I think it is really true; nobody makes a zombie flick like George A. Romero and I wish he would make a new one that would have more of a resolution or sense of closure than the last film, although the idea of escaping to an island seems to be a logical conclusion since the idea is mentioned in the second and third film in the trilogy and eventually does come to fruition.

This film seems to be an unofficial sequel to “Night Of The Living Dead” with direct references to events in the film, but then it veers off in a direction that quite honestly disappoints more than it delivers. I mean, even after 14 years of living in a place where the zombie plague originated and was destroyed, how could something that huge, depicted on national television in Romero’s original film, just be forgotten. Who would anyone ever feel safe or comfortable walking around in a world where the dead could rise at any moment and eat you alive and have risen and done this in the past already? The acting is terrible too. Now some could laugh at that statement and say, “What do you expect?” However, anyone who has seen the original trilogy Romero directed as well as the 1990 remake directed by Tom Savini can at least agree that collectively the films had a lot of talented genre film performers that have included the late Duane Jones, Judith O’dea, Karl Hardman, Ken Foree, Tony Todd, and Patricia Tallman. In fact all have all become icons of the genre and in the case of Tony Todd and Patricia Tallman, have transcended the genre to appear in a variety of other films outside of horror as well as televisions programs such as “Babylon 5” and three of the four “Star Trek” television spin-offs among other syndicated and network TV programs. Frankly, John Russo and Bill Hinzman, who were behind the utterly terrible 30th Anniversary Edition of “Night Of The Living Dead” that is distributed on DVD by Anchor Bay, simply seem to have lost touch with what made the first film Romero co-wrote and directed a stand out that still is a frightening, creepy, and darkly entertaining film to watch today.

None of this should be reflected upon Artisan Home Entertainment though because while they are distributing the DVD, they didn’t produce the film. “Children Of The Living Dead” is presented on DVD in a crystal clear anamorphic widescreen (1.77:1) aspect ratio with English Dolby Digital 5.1 and Stereo Soundtrack options. The low budget of this film reflects itself greatly on the rather low fidelity of the 5.1 surround soundtrack. English Captions and Closed Captions and Spanish Subtitles are also encoded on to the DVD. A full-framed (1.33:1) trailer for “Children Of The Living Dead” and a photo gallery are included as well along with trailers for “Deep In The Woods”, “Wishmaster 3”, “Premonition”, “Bloody Murder”, “Ginger Snaps”, and “If I Die Before I Wake.”

The interactive menus are animated with full motion scene selections. “Children Of The Living Dead” is available now on DVD-Video from Artisan Home Entertainment.

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