The late George A. Romero's breakout film Night of the Living Dead is a definitive piece of zombie cinema. Ever since the film's 1968 theatrical debut, Night of the Living Dead has startled audiences with its flesh-eating ghouls and unrelentingly grim stakes. In July, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment announced that the Romero classic was being adapted into a slightly modernized and R-rated animated film titled Night of the Animated Dead. Directed by Jason Axinn, the animated film serves as a love letter to the George A. Romero classic.
In an interview with CBR, Axinn discussed his approach to directing Night of the Animated Dead, detailed his deep love for the 1968 horror classic, and celebrated his film's all-star cast.
How did the opportunity to adapt Night of the Living Dead as an animated feature first come about?
Jason Axinn: The project was already in motion before I came on board but I know that the intention was to make the classic more accessible to modern audiences using animation.
That said, this is a more graphically violent film than the original. This isn't like it was in 1968. How was it balancing that fidelity with modern sensibilities?
The perspective was to remake the film as close to the original as possible but to imagine it like, "If George Romero was making this film today, how far would you go with the gore?" I decided to go pretty far, as far as [we] could, to try to make the gore as over-the-top as possible.
Even while staying faithful to the original, did you want to leave your own personal stamp on this definitive piece of zombie fiction?
I wanted to keep as much from the original film as possible. Everything that I thought was an iconic shot would still be there.
Occasionally, we would ramp up the action or have a reversal or twist that the audience doesn't see coming. In the original film, Ben tells the story of how he got his truck. Here, we get to actually see the scene instead of hearing it described. That was a place I got to stretch out a bit creatively, but it was all described out in the original film so we tried to make it as close to Ben's description as possible and still show you everything even though you don't see it. At the very end of the film, I wanted to make sure that the end of the film had more weight, rather than just being cut off abruptly like in the original. I wanted to give the audience a chance to experience it more before the film ended.
What was it about this animation style you wanted to go with? Barbra, Ben, and the others are very identifiable from the original.
The animation style that I went for was realism because I feel that, with animation, the audience is going to have a buffer up for any emotional reaction to violence. Most animation is a cartoon where violence happens all the time and no one reacts to it. To teach an audience to react to animation, you have to have the characters and setting as real as possible so that, as they watch the film, they forget they're watching animation and just have an emotional connection to the characters. Then any violence that happens, is going to have a visceral reaction. The more stylized you have the character designs, the harder it is for an audience to connect emotionally for violence.
Some of the other Warner Animation projects I spoke with have had limited opportunities for joint recording and this is as close as we're getting to Psych in a bonafide zombie apocalypse with Dulé Hill and James Roday Rodriguez. Was any of the cast able to record together?
No, the actors all recorded their lines by themselves. There was no chance to have two people in the same room at the same time which is pretty wild to watch because there's a bunch of scenes where they're fighting and they never even met each other.
How would say this cast was able to imbue their own voices into their performances as these classic characters?
Josh Duhamel did a fantastic job with Harry Cooper. Harry Cooper is a tough character because he's definitely protecting his family against strangers and the zombies and he's doing what he thinks is right and the safest move for his wife and daughter; but, at the same time, he's also the villain and someone that continually aggravates the other characters. It's a really tough line to walk and Josh Duhamel did a fantastic job.
How was it working with Dulé because I feel like this is the most badass role he's had. It really is one of the more groundbreaking horror roles in cinema. How was it having him take on such an iconic and tragic character?
I know Dulé from his performance on The West Wing. The West Wing is my favorite television show and Dulé turned in fantastic, dramatic performances every episode. He was just incredible. I knew that Dulé had the ability to knock this role out and he did. He just surpassed everyone's expectations and really surprised us with how amazing he is in the role.
You were mentioning you were doing this in the style of Romero. Is there a scene you'd like to show him to see how he'd react if he was still with us?
I would be curious to know what he thought of the very end of the movie.
When you watch the original, it's a series of still images and we based our ending off of those stills. I would be curious to see what he thought of how we interpreted that and extrapolated that along the lines of what he was trying to show with the stills.
With this being a love letter to Night of the Living Dead, what is your own personal connection to that film and Romero's work?
I'm a huge George Romero fan!
The last film I made, To Your Last Death, was very heavily influenced by Creepshow, and, growing up, Dawn of the Dead was my favorite horror movie. I've been a huge George Romero fan my entire life so getting to do a love letter to the original Night of the Living Dead was absolutely an honor. I'm thrilled to have the opportunity.
Do you remember the first time you saw Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead?
I saw Dawn of the Dead as a teenager and you're never really ready for Dawn of the Dead. Dawn of the Dead is the first horror movie I ever saw where I realized the difference between a movie that had jump scares and a movie that taught you that the real horror is being stuck with humans that fight. That's Dawn of the Dead represented to me.
I saw Night of the Living Dead in college and that's the same theme he does in his films. Through Night, Dawn, and Day of the Dead, he's trying to point out that the real enemy is us. [laughs] It may be a misdirect that there is horror outside but the real horror is how humans interact with each other and the evil that they do to each other. I always thought that was fascinating and amazing.
I know there's weird licensing with the sequels but would you be open to doing animated adaptations to Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead?
I love working with Warner Bros. so if they wanted to do sequels to this film, I would absolutely love to be involved.
Now that the movie is done, what are you most excited about getting to share it with the world?
I'm excited for the world to see this version of the movie! This is definitely a love letter to the original but if you've ever put off seeing the original because it's in black-and-white and that's not your thing, this is the version to see.
Directed by Jason Axinn, Night of the Animated Dead is out on Digital HD and Blu-ray/4K UHD on Sept. 21.