Night of the Animated Dead

Needless to say that of course I sat down to watch the 2021 animated movie titled "Night of the Animated Dead", as I am a huge fan of the zombie genre. And I have to say that the cover/poster for this particular animated movie definitely looked interesting.

Now, I hadn't heard about "Night of the Animated Dead" prior to watching it, so I wasn't really sure what I was in for here. But the title should have been a dead giveaway. Regardless, I sat down to watch it.

And boy this was painful to sit through. First of all, the art style used in this animated movie looked nothing like the art on the cover/poster, so that was a slap to the face. Even worse was the fact that the entire feature looked like something that you would have seen in the Flash animation that was super popular during the 1990s, you know the small animated segments you saw on the Internet. And with that being said, and it looked and felt like Flash animation, then the art itself felt like something drawn by a youngster.

Then there was the storyline. Of course the storyline was good, as it was based on the original George A. Romero's "Night of the Living Dead". Well, not based on, but a downright copy of. Yeah, this was the story told in "Night of the Living Dead" but in animated form. So there would be some appeal to some, I suppose. Personally I found this to be a fully and wholly unnecessary project. We already have a couple of remakes of the classic Romero zombie movie, so this animated movie was just pointless. Needless to say that the inferior art presentation weren't doing much to sell the project either.

The voice acting was actually good enough, having Josh Duhamel and Will Sasso on the voice cast ensemble. Those were the only two famous I knew about though.

If you are unfamiliar with the mammoth zombie movie that is George A. Romero's "Night of the Living Dead", then shame on you, but then I suppose an animated movie such as the 2021 "Night of the Animated Dead" could be a good enough introduction, because it sets the bar low, and watching the movies afterwards will only heighten the experience.

My rating of director Jason Axinn's 2021 animated movie lands on a three out of ten stars. Sure, I love the story told in "Night of the Living Dead", but this animated cash-in on the franchise created by Romero was just plain and downright unnecessary, and quite an eyesore to watch.

This follows the original Night of the Living dead almost exact. I was excited to see it. And to be honest it would have been good. But the animation is the downfall. Very choppy is some places. If maybe the animation was like some of the other animation WB produces. It would have been extremely good....my Rating. Story : 7 Animation : 3.

Seriously. Just watch the original movie and appreciate everything that made it the classic horror film that it is. Or watch the Rifftrax version with some friends. This version is basically a shot-for-shot remake of the classic movie with janky animation, middling gore effects, and uninspired voice acting. There's none of the atmosphere or tension found in the original, and not because of the animated format -- it simply doesn't do anything with the source material.

"Night of the Animated Dead" is a very interesting idea, and I don't fully hate this idea, however this movie suffers from some very questionable animation.

What I liked about this movie is that it's quick. It's a nice breezy 70 minute long movie, and it was nice to just have a movie that went quickly. The gore too is also very good. The movie succeeds with its cartoon gore. The voice acting is also very good. The movie did do a great job at making this feel like a homage to the original.

However this movie does suffer from some not good animation. It's not terrible, but it's just very cheap looking. The movie also doesn't take chances to really change things. I get this is a animation of it, but they could've done some new things to change up the story. And finally the middle portion of the movie does slow down a little bit, but it does start to pick up in the final 20 minutes.

Overall "Night of the Animated Dead" is a cool idea that really suffers from cheap animation, and not doing much new, but it had fun gore, and was quick enough for me to enjoy enough.

It's been forever since I've seen the original, but this film did seem to try and remain faithful to the original plot, though I can't say that's a good thing, given that the story is so dated, and can no longer be sold simply for its unique concept.

Where this movie really lacked though, was the animation and art. I may have enjoyed the story for the nostalgia factor alone, but I couldn't help but be distracted by the characters choppy and awkward movements, and just how bad they looked in general. With animation that would have been subpar even in the early 90's, this movie seemed more like a parody that forgot the funny, than a remake.