A Discussion on Night of the Living Dead Rip Offs, or “The Dual Blade of Copyrights”

Disclaimer: This article is not meant to bash those who took the time to make an actual movie. Which is more than the guy at laptop writing about said movies will probably ever do.

In 1968, George A. Romero released Night of the Living Dead, a film that would not only influence, and arguably be the catalyst to, an entire genre of horror films, but also bring about a line of indie films. Why? Because when the movie was first released in theaters, the original film distributor forgot to add a copyright notice on the film print. Thus making the film automatically go into the public domain, as according to copyright laws in America at the time. However, we are not here to discuss the history of that specific event, but rather what spawned from it.

Since the film is in the public domain, any company and any film student can take the name and use it however they want. This isn’t a bad thing on its own, other than the fact that Romero lost a lot of money. Anyway, while this isn’t a bad thing, it can lead to some films that are, let us say, less than adequate (i.e. bad). Not always, but from what films I have seen thus far, they don’t help make a good case for this cause. I have only seen one remake bearing the name Night of the Living Dead that I can say for certain is on par, if not more entertaining in places, than the original.

1990 saw the release of the first major remake of Romero’s film. It was directed by Tom Savini…