Revisit George A. Romero’s 1968 horror classic in Night of the Animated Dead, an animated adaptation of the 1968 horror classic which includes never-before-seen, exclusive animated scenes not found in the original live-action film.
In Night of the Animated Dead, siblings Barbara and Johnny visit their father’s grave in a remote cemetery in Pennsylvania when they are suddenly set upon by zombies. Barbara flees and takes refuge in an abandoned farmhouse along with stranded motorist Ben and four local survivors found hiding in the cellar. Together, the group must fight to stay alive against the oncoming horde of zombies while also confronting their own fears and prejudices.
We spoke to Josh Duhamel who plays Harry about revisiting the classic movie in animated form…
How did you get involved with Night Of The Animated Dead?
Michael Luisi who I produced and directed Buddy Games with called me and asked me if I wanted to be a part of it. I read the script and I loved the original movie and felt like it could be a cool project to do so I hopped on board!
Did you get a choice on who you could play in the movie?
No, I took what I could get [haha]! They offered me this part and I liked it.
There’s quite a lot of violence in Night Of The Animated Dead. Were you expecting that?
Typically in animated films you don’t see this kind of graphic stuff. At least in those I’ve seen. I have an eight-year-old and I spend a lot of time watching Pixar and Disney movies!
I watched it this morning, and I was really intrigued by it actually. There’s just a sort of feeling that I get watching it. They knew [the undead] were coming and there was nothing they could really do. I just felt like it was much scarier than I expected it to be. That’s what these kinds of movies are meant to do, scare people and they did a really good job of it!
It felt like it had that same tone to me. It felt like none of it really happens too quickly. It ends a little tragically, in a way. It all happens so suddenly and the same with James Roday’s character [Tom]. There’s something shocking about it as well. I think if you can do that effectively in a movie like this, you win.
Had you already seen Night Of The Living Dead?
I watched it before I started doing this and I remember seeing it originally. It just felt like this was going to be an interesting remake, to see how they actually did it and if would they would try to change it or try to modernise it. But I like the fact that they kept it in the same tone to the original. There’s something really cool about that.
What is it about Night Of The Living Dead that makes us still interested in the story all these years later?
I don’t know. I mean it’s one of the first zombie films, I don’t know where exactly it falls in the history of this genre, but you feel helpless watching this knowing that there’s nothing they can really do to stave off these things, the ever-coming dead. There was something really reminiscent about it with the first one. I thought this was a really interesting take.
What can you tell us about your character Harry?
He’s not a great dude. I don’t know, I don’t mind taking on characters who aren’t necessarily overly redeeming. Sometimes it’s fun to play a guy that the audience loves to hate, and this guy definitely was that. But at the same time, you don’t look at him as somebody who’s hateable. If you’re really inside Harry’s skin, he was just trying to survive and was doing whatever he could to help the people he loved. But yeah it was a fun character to play.
How do you find doing voice acting?
It depends on the job. Sometimes it’s understated and you fall into a groove and it’s kind of subtle. But at the same time a lot of these roles are animated in such a way that you have to bring your voice up to whatever level the character or whatever the tone of the movie’s at.
You do have a lot more freedom when you’re relying only on your voice and then you can do things that you wouldn’t probably do on camera. You can feel a lot more liberty just doing what you do in the voice booth.
What do you want audiences to take away from the film?
I think that this is a movie for anybody who loves the genre of film and, especially, the origin of the material. This really is one of the originals in this genre so we’re hoping that this recaptures that. It’s for the true horror film fanatic and I thought that they did a beautiful job of recreating it.
Night Of The Animated Dead is out now from Warner Bros Home Entertainment