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.
