I'm a bit late on this, but it dovetails nicely into the Danielle Harris casting in HATCHET 2.  THR is reporting that Harris, Joe Pilato and Bill Moseley have joined Mos Def in the cast of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: ORIGINS, a strange, hybrid retake on George Romero's original classic.

A little background on ORIGINS:  This is to be an updated, 3D version that takes place in New York City and provides back story for the characters.  It's also supposed to involve some new sort of animation, but I've heard it's got live action too.  The explanation that director Zebediah DeSoto offers is so confusing, I have no idea what he's doing here.  And I have a degree in English.

I gather that DeSoto is trying to pull in fans of all zombie works associated with Romero.  As Harry Cooper he's cast Pilato, who's mostly known for playing Capt. Rhodes in DAY OF THE DEAD, and Bill Moseley will play Johnny, the same role he played 20 years ago in Tom Savini's remake of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.  But he's also cast Harris as Barbra, and this presents a huge problem, because Moseley is 26 years older than Harris, and they're supposed to play siblings.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD has already been remade twice;  Savini's version has its fans, but many find it generally inferior to Romero's (see my review here).  I've never met anybody who didn't hate the 2006 3D remake, where the farmers don't want to leave the house because they won't part with their ganja (I won't even review this version, it's so terrible).  ORIGINS sounds like an unfathomable, indescribable project that wants to cash in on the NOTLD copyright problem that has plagued Romero for four decades now.

Let's see what this cast is able to put together under DeSoto's vision.

Read the full article at THR here.

--Phil Fasso