Welcome back to Behind The Scenes Saturday!! Today, I pay tribute to one of my favorite horror remakes, Night Of The Living Dead! I finally got to add this one to my collection and give it another watch and I’m so glad I did. It fixed all the problems I had with the original film and it ended up getting a perfect rating from me. So, board up all the windows, beware of cemeteries, and enjoy these fun pictures and bits of trivia!!

(Trivia provided by IMDb.com)

(Pictures provided by google.com, Facebook.com, and IMDb.com)

(SPOILER ALERT!!!)

• The film’s director, Tom Savini originally wanted the film to start out in black and white, then slowly add color.
• Bill Cardille appears in both this film and the original 1968 film as a reporter.
• At one point in the film, a female zombie can be seen walking through the field with the house in the background. She turns and begins to stagger to the house after hearing the protagonists boarding up windows inside of it. This zombie was played by the woman who owned the house in real life. The producers made a deal with her to give her a part in the film in exchange for her letting them use the house in the film.

• This was legendary actor, Tony Todd’s (Ben) first starring role in a horror film.
• Russell Streiner, who played Johnny in the original Night Of The Living Dead, plays a small role in this film as Sheriff McClelland.
• Columbia, who distributed this film, almost distributed the original 1968 film. However, they requested the filmmakers to change their bleak ending to a much more upbeat one. The filmmakers refused, so Columbia passed on it.

• The Mercedes that Johnnie (Bill Moseley) drives at the beginning of the film was owned by Tom Savini. It was the first car he bought after finding success and he expressed how much it broke his heart to wreck it during filming.
• Several scenes had to be cut from the film to avoid an X rating. The scenes cut or changed include: 1.) close-up of the fire poker in the head in the first zombie that Barbara (Patricia Tallman) killed. 2.) Gory head shot of McGruder Zombie when Barbara shoots him. 3.) Bloodier version of the scene where Barbara shoots and kills Window Zombie (Charles Crawley). 4.) Tom (William Butler) blowing off a zombie’s head with a shotgun. 5.) Barbara killing another zombie when she takes the gun from Policeman Zombie (David Grace).
• Tom Savini considered including a shooting star over the horizon at the beginning of the film. It wouldn’t be specified whether it was a satellite or a meteor, but it would’ve been an homage to the Venus Probe theory behind the original 1968 film. The idea was later dropped.

• Without the film’s writer, George Romero on set, Tom Savini clashed a lot with the producers for not allowing him to explore his vision for the film.
• This was Tom Savini’s directorial debut.
• Walter Berry, who played the McGruder zombie, was in a diner when Tom Savini approached him and told him that he would make a great zombie. Berry agreed, so he appeared in the film. Berry ended up showing up to all of the premieres of the film.

• Tom Savini stated that only 40% of his ideas made it into the final film.
• As is tradition with most zombie movies, the word “zombie” is never used to describe the living dead in this film.
• Laurence Fishburne, Ving Rhames, and Eriq La Salle auditioned for the role of Ben. Rhames later landed the starring role in the Dawn Of The Dead remake.

• Tom Savini and Patricia Tallman have known each other since they went to college together. He cast her in the lead role because of her strong-willed demeanor.
• There was originally going to be a scene where Barbara comes across a hideous female zombie that she saw as her mother. Everyone was supposed to tell her to shoot it. The “mother” would’ve looked at Barbara and asked, “Where’s Johnnie, Barbara?”, then turned back into the hideous zombie, then Barbara would’ve finally shot it.
• The special-effects team wanted to keep the effects restrained because they felt the excessive gore would be disrespectful to the original film. To keep the effects realistic, they got inspiration from real autopsies, forensic pathology textbooks, and nazi death camp footage.

• In the film, Tom wears a t-shirt with an Iron City Beer logo on the front. This is the beer consumed by the redneck militia in the original Dawn Of The Dead film.
• The Autopsy Zombie (Tim Carrier) at the beginning of the film was not in the original script. He was later added by Tom Savini.
• Supposedly, someone sent a copy of the footage of the Mercedes rolling down the hill into the tree to Daimler-Benz. The footage showed the air bag in the car not deploying, and the person who sent the footage was apparently rewarded with a new car for bringing this to their attention.

• The man who comes through the window after the protagonists threw the McGruder zombie out was a cab driver. He was originally hired to transport extras to and from the set during filming. Savini eventually asked him if he actually wanted to be in the movie. Patricia Tallman stated that during filming, the man briefly stalked her, channeling her on-screen brother by repeatedly saying, “I’m gonna get you, Barbara” as a joke.
• The nameplate by the door of the farmhouse had M Celeste on it. This name is an homage to the Mary Celeste, a sailing ship that was discovered in the Atlantic Ocean unmanned and under sail in 1872. Her crew was not onboard and the only lifeboat was gone, but the ship had absolutely no damage and she was still sea worthy. Like the ship, the farmhouse in this film was (relatively) undamaged by its ordeal and could have been immediately occupied. Tom Savini chose that name as a deliberate reference to the state of the house.
• Despite the fact that filming was going smoothly, not going over time or over budget, Menahem Golan and the film’s other producers insisted on cutting out scenes and events for the sake of keeping costs down. Because Tom Savini was a first-time director, he couldn’t really do anything to stop them.

• The film’s reputation drew in zombie extras from as far away as Kentucky, so recruiting the extra zombies was exceptionally easy.
• Patricia Tallman previously worked with George Romero in Knightriders.
• Tom Savini stated that he wanted to keep the film artistic, despite having the reputation as the King Of Splatter.

• George Romero stated that he wrote Barbara to be the strong survivor in this film as an apology to women. To him, in the original film, “Barbara loses her shoes, falls down, and tiptoes like a 1950s maiden in distress.”
• Tom Savini later called the production of this film as the worst nightmare of his life.
• Caroline Williams almost played the part of Barbara. However, she was already committed to Days Of Thunder and doing both projects would’ve been extremely difficult.

• This was the acting debut for both Katie Finneran (Judy Rose) and Heather Mazur (Sarah Cooper).
• Peter Hyams was originally approached to direct, but he turned it down in favor of directing Narrow Margin.
• Bill Moseley and Tom Towles (Harry Cooper) later worked together on House Of 1000 Corpses.

• All of the taxidermy in the film was from a local sportsman’s store. One of the store’s owners can be seen at the end of the film. He was the archer shooting the zombies hanging from a tree.
• The scene at the end of the film, where zombies were hung from a tree and shot at, was written for the 1968 film. Due to racial tensions gripping the country at the time, the scene was justifiably cut from the film. They put it in this film as an homage to the cut.
• When Sarah bites Helen (McKee Anderson) on the neck, her blood splatters all over a garden trowel hanging on the wall. This is a reference to the original film, where Karen stabbed Helen repeatedly with a garden trowel.

• Tom Savini had to push hard with the producers to make Barbara the strong survivor and action heroine.
• Despite the obvious danger of zombies outside of the house, none of the main characters are actually killed by the zombies outside of the house. 2 were shot, two were blown up, Barbara survives and Helen was killed by her zombie daughter inside the house.
• George Romero has a cameo in the film as the radio announcer.