'Night of the Living Dead' Is Being Rebuilt for the Phone

One of horror’s most influential films is being rebuilt for the phone.

Room418 is developing a vertical reimagining of George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, the 1968 landmark starring Duane Jones and Judith O’Dea, as part of a larger horror slate. The original’s public-domain status has made it one of the most adapted films in history, but a 9:16 serialized version is new territory.

The adaptation problem

Romero’s film works through accumulation: a farmhouse, a radio, a slowly closing circle. Its power is patience. Vertical drama is built on the opposite instinct, with every episode engineered to end seconds before a payoff so the viewer taps through.

That makes the project a useful test of whether the format can hold a mood rather than just a hook. Horror has done well in vertical so far, but mostly in its jump-scare and possession registers. Slow dread has not been tried at scale.

What VPAA is watching

Three things will tell whether this works:

• Episode length. Room418 has the option to run longer episodes than the two-minute standard. Dread needs room.
• Casting. The original’s lead performance by Duane Jones, a Black actor in a 1968 horror film, is part of why the film endures. A reimagining will be judged on whether it understands that.
• Credit and compensation. As with every adaptation of existing IP, the association’s interest is whether the cast and crew on the new production are working under clear agreements.

Can short, cliffhanger-driven episodes preserve what made the original endure? Room418 is about to find out in public.