And when someone or something starts knocking ominously on the coffin�from within�it correctly strikes her that all hell is about to break loose. Sure enough, zombies start chasing after Barb, and it's not long before she's taking refuge in a farmhouse belonging to the Cooper family.

They are an odd lot, but everyone must join forces in order to take on the menacing but slow-moving zombies that are lurking just outside and eager to eat them. And into the fray steps one Gerard Tovar Jr. (Haig), a local mortician with a God complex and a fear of fire who also knows a lot more about what's really going on than he initially lets on.

What's worse, a horror flick that's not the least bit horrific or a 3-D movie that hardly makes use of its 3-D technology? That is the sad debate here. At once a homage and a so-called "re-imagining," Night of the Living Dead 3D takes the George Romero classic and, to its credit, at least tries to put a new spin on it. It's not an out-and-out remake, not a carbon copy.

Sid Haig brings the undead to life

Writer Valding and director Broadstreet drop the entire social-satire aspect of the original film, but in doing so they replace it with ... nothing. There's next to no comedy, save for some stoner bits and a couple of ironic glimpses of characters watching the Romero film, though the morons here seem to pay no attention to the rules of zombiedom set forth in the old classic. Likewise, there's precious little dramatic tension and, most egregiously, barely any gore or genuine scares. Rather, there's too much talk, too much bad acting (though Brown actually comes close to creating something resembling a character) and far too many cuts away from the money shots. Even the gratuitous nudity and sex scene feel tame and limp.

Truth be told, there have been so many zombie flicks over the past few years that it's hard to generate any kind of excitement about them, so the one real hope for Night of the Living Dead 3D was the 3-D itself. Unfortunately, the gimmick registers only minimally. We put on our old-fashioned cardboard glasses with the red and blue lenses and all we get is a joint passed to the viewer, zombie hands reaching out, a smoke ring blowing into the living room and the occasional knife or shovel or some glass coming at us. Come on, where are the droplets of splattering blood, the flying body parts? What a missed opportunity. Worse, so much of the film is so damned dark you can't see anything anyway.

Broadstreet wisely does not waste the presence of Sid Haig. Haig gets all the best scenes and all the truly entertaining lines of dialogue. He starts off quirky and reveals Tovar to be one seriously weird weirdo, just barely keeping his tongue in cheek the whole time. Haig, a hulking guy with a bald head and massive, expressive eyes, kicks off one extended sequence by sitting down, looking squarely at the terrified characters at the Coopers' house, and asking, "Do you have anything to drink?" Long beat. "Some tea?" It's classic Haig, and the rest of the scene is just as playful and over-the-top.

As for the DVD extras, they're surprisingly entertaining and informative. Haig, Broadstreet and Valding team up for an interesting audio commentary, but far more enlightening is a filmed post-screening Q&A with them and the producer. Director of photographer Andrew Parke serves up straightforward technical talk in a behind-the-scenes featurette about the challenges of shooting in 3-D. And there are a couple of chuckles to be found in the blooper reel.