The Warner Bros. Home Entertainment project called Night of the Animated Dead first caught our attention when the Motion Picture Association gave it an R rating for "bloody/gruesome zombie violence" back in May. At the time, the title and the rating were all we had to go on, it wasn't clear exactly what this thing was. Now The Hollywood Reporter has been able to confirm that Night of the Animated Dead is indeed an animated adaptation of the George A. Romero classic Night of the Living Dead, and they've revealed the names of the actors who are providing the voices for the characters Romero and co-writer John A. Russo first introduced audiences to more than 50 years ago.
The voice cast includes: genre regular Katharine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps, Freddy vs. Jason) as Barbara, Dulé Hill (Psych) as Ben, Josh Duhamel (Las Vegas, Jupiter's Legacy) as Harry Cooper, James Roday Rodriguez (also best known for Psych) as Tom, Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica, Halloween: Resurrection) as Judy, Nancy Travis (So I Married an Axe Murderer) as Helen Cooper, Jimmi Simpson (Westworld, multiple episodes of Psych) as Johnny, and Will Sasso (MADtv) as Sheriff McClelland.
Some of the cast members seemed to miss out on Psych, but Isabelle was on the show, too. She appeared in two episodes, six years apart, playing different characters each time.
Night of the Living Dead had the following synopsis:
A disparate group of individuals takes refuge in an abandoned house when corpses begin to leave the graveyard in search of fresh human bodies to devour. The pragmatic Ben does his best to control the situation, but when the reanimated bodies surround the house, the other survivors begin to panic. As any semblance of order within the group begins to dissipate, the zombies start to find ways inside — and one by one, the living humans become the prey of the deceased ones.
Night of the Animated Dead has been directed by Jason Axinn, who made his feature directorial debut with the animated horror movie To Your Last Death a couple years ago. I'm assuming Psych is his favorite TV show.
The film was produced by Michael J Luisi, Ralph E. Portillo, Robert Feldman, and Kevin Kasha. Richard Potter, Thomas DeFeo, and Jamie Elliott serve as executive producers.
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment hasn't announced a specific release date for Night of the Animated Dead yet, but the film is expected to receive a Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital release sometime this fall.
This isn't the first time Night of the Living Dead has been given the animated treatment. There was a movie called Night of the Living Dead: Re-Animated, which kept the original film's soundtrack but recreated all the action through animation and artwork from over a hundred different artists.
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