So this isn’t technically part of George Romero’s “Living Dead” franchise. It’s by a totally different writer and director, and it’s an explicit comedy. I’m generally skeptical of horror comedy, but dang if this one doesn’t work — I think it helps that zombies aren’t about jump scares and tension, but about the overwhelming press of relentless, non-stop onslaught, which is a grim entropic mood that works well with the tension release of humor.

So the basic premise of the movie is that Night of the Living Dead is a movie in this world, but it’s about something that really happened… only, the movie kinda got the facts wrong, and the real zombies were caused by some government stuff, and also don’t quite work like that. The inciting incident of the plot — an accident with a secret government device — is a satirical joke that also works surprisingly well as straightforward story.

So the story mostly focuses on a bunch of teens who are (mostly) hanging out in a graveyard (classic teen behavior) when some shit goes down, and well… you know. The teens are hilariously stereotyped in a way that feels like it’s doing a deliberate ’80s period piece pastiche, but the movie is actually from 1985, so I guess it’s just doing a pastiche of its present day.

It’s fun, and it also has a (heavy-handed) layer of social commentary, which is in dialogue with Night and somehow also works. For something that looks like a cheap, soulless cash-in piece of fluff, this ends up being surprisingly good.