The LIVING DEAD movie that DISAPPEARED | Night of the living dead 2 | A Documentary

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]What if I told you that they were making a film called Night of the Living Dead 2 a few years ago? Now, what made this one different is when it got teased and announced and we saw what they were showing, there was a different reception. It wasn't an eye roll. People were actually saying, "Wait a minute.

[00:00:16]Could this be the one?" It seemed to be that that was a possibility. They had names attached, people that were becoming big stars at the time, like David Howard Thornton. They even had people like Lorie Card from Day of the Dead coming back. This was going to be the one. All the news outlets were picking up on it. Everybody was talking about it. And then one day it was as if it never happened. Today we're going to be talking about Night of the Living Dead 2, the Living Dead movie that vanished.

[00:00:57]You'd almost think there'd be a movie that legitimately exists called Night of the Living Dead 2. Well, it kind of does. It's called Dawn of the Dead. Now, this was obviously the sequel that came out in 1978 by George Romero. George seemed to like to move the ball in a different direction. Instead of calling movies Night of the Living Dead 2 or three, he made, you know, basically the Times of the Day releases. You had night, then dawn, and then we worked our way back up in 1985 to Day of the Dead.

[00:01:23]After that, obviously, there would be a big gap before he returned to do Land of the Dead, which was really a consequence of losing Resident Evil, which I still think in another alternate reality, Romero's Resident Evil was made, and it was amazing. Land of the Dead was what it was. I like it, but some people don't look at the film as a Romero classic, and that is understandable. George went back to his roots and tried to make movies on his own terms with Diary of the Dead, which I think is actually an interesting horror film, one that I actually like quite a bit. And then, of course, he squeezed out Survival of the Dead, but unfortunately, the fanfare for that one was about as lifeless as zombies themselves. Along the way, there were multiple other types of Living Dead films. Some great ones like Return of the Living Dead, of course, the 1990 Night of Living Dead remake. But there was always a blood cry for what could be. We know now that Twilight of the Living Dead was going to be that really tried to tell the story continuing on from his classic films like Night Dawn and Day of the Dead. And it looks to be like that movie could be happening.

[00:02:27]There's been movement on that one. We just talked about that on the channel last week. Be sure to check that video out if you haven't. What about a Romero zombie film about survivors on an island trying to basically continue with their lives when in reality zombies will get you anywhere? Well, what if I told you that's what Night of Living Dead 2 was supposed to be? Let's get into the facts that we do know about Night of Living Dead 2. Night of Living Dead 2 was a lowprofile fanoriented zombie horror project announced in mid 2021. Marcus Leavine was the writer and director. It was going to serve as a direct sequel to George's classic Night of Living Dead while heavily tying into the coveted 1985 Day of the Dead. Now, this is something that happened that was different from any other sort of Living Dead revival that we would see like the remake from '06, Living Dead Resurrection, or even the Viva A. Fox Night of Living Dead that we just saw.

[00:03:24]Marcus Sabine was known for certain movies like Dark Offerings, and he wanted to direct and write a film that would be a big sequel to the classic Romero dead films. The biggest thing that was a shock was that when this thing got announced, it was reportedly already shot like the movie was done.

[00:03:39]This threw people off, including me. I remember reading this at the time and thinking, "That's very interesting. How did you afford to secretly shoot all this? Where did you get the money?" Now, Marcus Leavine, I don't think, is an untalented guy by any stretch. And I'm not saying he's some sort of like brokie that can't get money, but to do it in secret, how did this stuff go on? Well, let's talk about that a little bit more as time goes on. This movie prominently featured three survivors of Day of the Dead. Lorie Cardal, Terry Alexander, and Jaroth Conroy reuniting for the first time together on the big screen in decades. This was a major selling point, and this was leveraging big nostalgia on the Romero universe. I remember hearing about this through a R morg or bloody disgusting article. I probably read both of them, which we are definitely going to look back at that in this video to kind of conjure up some more information, but my jaw was on the floor. I thought I would never see Lorie Cardell and others from The Great Day of the Dead being a horror movie like this, especially a zombie Romero styled Living Dead film. Well, things were going to pick up from here. And some of the images that were going to be released had me shocked. The story follows a small group of survivors on a remote island trying to maintain normaly in a post-apocalyptic world. Only now they're going to face imaginable new problems.

[00:05:01]This movie was going to be framed as continuing the zombie apocalypse from Romero's early films. But director Marcus wanted to have an emphasis on character-driven drama. He explained in interviews that while this was going to be a character-driven story with good performances, the gore and zombie effects were not going to be held back.

[00:05:18]Something that blew my mind is when we saw the shark bait zombie. When this image came out, I couldn't believe it.

[00:05:26]This is where I learned that David Howard Thornton was going to be playing one of the most disturbing looking zombies I quite frankly had ever seen.

[00:05:34]This image was leaked and I've looked into it. David Howard Thornton has never denied any of this happened. He never denied filming this. And this image is shocking to see that that was him. He's unrecognizable as the shark bait zombie.

[00:05:49]Now, what really blows my mind about this is, let's look at this one more time. How good this looks. If this was really shot, there had to have been some money sunken into creating this. The imagery of this zombie is as good as anything I've seen over the last 20 years. To say I want to see this movie based off of these images, something that is an understatement. Things to me were looking up big time for Night of the Living Dead 2. I remember seeing these and saying to myself, Christian, this could be the one. I couldn't help but shake this certain feeling about what's really going on here. Now, this thing is being touted as already being secretly filmed. I mean, I guess that's possible, but this is technically a low-budget almost fan project. Even though it's involving cast from Day of the Dead and its plot has a very similar story, I just couldn't help but feel what's really going on here. My suspicions were raised, ladies and gentlemen, when there was this YouTube channel created, which you can find till this very day, Living Dead 2, where a teaser trailer was dropped for this movie. Let's go ahead and watch that teaser trailer together.

[00:07:22]Okay, no judgment per se, but if a movie's already been filmed, why make a teaser trailer? Don't get me wrong, teaser trailers are awesome and I miss them quite frankly. Back in the 80s and 90s, teaser trailers would get you hyped for movies like The Fog, movies like Day of the Dead, for instance. But my point is, why not have a selling point of showing footage, especially this sharkbait zombie that David Howard Thornton played in this teaser trailer.

[00:07:49]Well, I'm not sure what to make of that.

[00:07:52]This whole thing started to seem maybe a little off to me. There's certainly some red flags to talk about. For instance, the plot of this movie. What's the plot of Twilight of the Dead? You might remember that the plot of Twilight of the Dead has a somewhat similar sounding plot to what this Night of Living Dead 2 was going to be. Maybe that's why this was shot in secret. Is it basically infringing on writing that's already owned by the Romero family? Very interesting. There's also something to note that, you know, even though Twilight of the Dead has seemingly gotten more life in the last couple months with these announcements, this isn't exactly the first rodeo with Twilight of the Dead. There was directors hired and writers in the past.

[00:08:35]Now we have a new set of writers directors, but it's not like Twilight of the Dead just sprouted out. Maybe there was something going on with this movie not being talked about publicly because of the plot of this film. Just something to think about. Let's talk a little bit more about that sharkbait zombie. I told you that David Howard Thornton himself portrayed that role. There's other images that leaked that showed not only that, but other zombies in that scene.

[00:09:00]It looks fantastic. Again, was this actually shot? I've looked online trying to see David really comment on this. And while I see that he never really denies it, I haven't actually found any video or audio of him talking about like, yes, we shot this whole scene, it was a thing, or if it was just pictures.

[00:09:21]Denial that he actually was there for this. Let's read a little bit about that. In late June, early July 2021, Marcus Leavine and outlets like Rumorg released exclusive first look photos of Thornton in full zombie makeup and prosthetics for this role. Sabine confirmed Thornton's involvement directly, noting he was completely unrecognizable in a full body suit and face prosthetic. His film project was described as filmed in secret along with the timing of the publicity around the day of the living dead cast reunion and this cameo. Horror news sites like Dread Central, Bloody Disgusting, Joe Blow, and others reported the cameo as completed with Thornton listed in the casting. Thornton is credited as this bait zombie on sites like IMDb, Letterbox, and Wikipedia entries related to his filmography.

[00:10:09]What was going on with this movie? It just disappeared. And even though these articles and everything are still there, if you go to living dead2.com, at least on my end, the site doesn't load. Something happened. We actually have some quotes from director Marcus that Let's read a little bit of this together and see if we can make heads or tails. Marcus Labine has announced the casting of Lorie Cardell, Terry Alexander, and Jerof Conroy, the three survivors of Romero's 85 Day of the Dead. Their presence in Night 2 was first revealed this past weekend at the Living Dead weekend in Pittsburgh. The movie was shot in secret by Selen Co, and he comments, "To say it was an amazing dream come true, seeing these three reunited after 36 years is an understatement. Lori is one of the most underrated female badasses of the 80s in her role as Sarah Bowman. And after 36 years, she's even more badass. It was like time hadn't skipped a beat. And their performances and chemistry were all still there. I've worked with Terry on several projects and I absolutely adore him. He's an extremely talented actor and his performances always ring true. Jeroth as well was an absolute delight watching him go and he is truly a chameleon actor. I really hope people enjoy watching them as much as we did filming them. There you see it. There's pictures of Night of Living Dead 2 at this Living Dead weekend and he says filmed was as much as we did. Did this movie legitimately get filmed? There is a lot of speculation online that even though this was touted as being filmed, maybe there really wasn't all that much film to begin with. Might I remind you that teaser trailer that we saw, it was a stagnant shot. We didn't really see much. That could have been something that was just put together quickly to try to show that stuff had been done.

[00:12:01]But again, look at the imagery of David as that zombie. The confusion just truly began to set in for me. I want to reiterate this was not something that was a secret when it was announced or or just not really given much attention.

[00:12:14]All the sites were talking about it.

[00:12:16]Rumored, bloody disgusting, Joe Blow. It was all over the internet. I remember being beyond excited at the prospect of seeing something that could really harness that Romero style. We've all been clamoring for something in that vein. And Twilight of the Dead in the same vein was seemingly dead at that point. We'd hear about it for a day or two and then boom, nothing. Who's to say that Twilight of the Dead might even happen still? I mean, this is not their first rodeo with getting writers, directors involved. After all this kind of came out, though, interestingly enough, nothing. 6 months, a year. I thought about maybe talking about this on the channel, but I needed more to bring to you guys. I never actually talked about it. Well, I forgot about this a few days ago where somebody said you should talk about Night of Living Dead 2. For a minute, I even forgot that that was a thing until I remembered, oh my god, this was the one that was going to have Lorie Cardal. There's a lot of speculation. One of the things that I think could have happened is number one, the film wasn't actually completely shot. And it may have been a tactic to try to get some sort of engagement and then they could have launched some kind of promotional, you know, thing to get people involved on a monetary side to actually continue filming it. right or wrong. Maybe that was the case. But maybe there was something else that happened. Maybe it was filmed in at least 60% capacity. But I reminded you earlier that the plot of this sounds somewhat familiar to what Twilight of the Dead is supposed to be. I wonder if something happened. I wonder if there was some sort of cease and desist. I wonder if there was some sort of, "Hey, you guys are going to shut up about this and it's going to disappear." If that's the case, you can't talk about an NDA.

[00:14:06]You can't talk about the stuff publicly.

[00:14:08]If they signed something, whether it be the actors, Marcus himself, the director, it's as if it never happened.

[00:14:15]It became the Living Dead film that essentially vanished from existence. I scoured the internet trying to find recent information about this, but interestingly enough, no one seems to want to talk about it. No one. People don't deny it happened, but in terms of like, hey, what's going on with that?

[00:14:33]It's just now I can't validate the information completely from this Reddit post I found, but this is something that somebody posted on a Reddit account and I'll be sure to show the user. And what they said sounded like it could have some sort of missing piece to this whole thing or at least information after the fact that could help us figure out what exactly happened with Night of Living Dead 2. Let's read this and just see if it makes sense to you. negative ad 3418 on Reddit says, "Here's a little bit more of information for you. For starters, some of the information about this movie is misleading, and I think it was due to legal issues or copyright issues between the studio and Romero's family. The movie is said to be a sequel to the original Nether Living Dead.

[00:15:19]Other pieces of information say the movie takes place on an island with the remnants of humanity. This makes me think this is actually a sequel to Day of the Dead since the remaining three characters escaped on a helicopter and you saw them living out their lives on an island. This also fit the new story of the official Twilight of the Dead since the synopsis on that is about an island with the last remnants of humanity. Whether these two were supposed to tie into each other, no one really knows and it's purely speculation at the moment. Other pieces of information were they had problems filming due to problems with money since it was a rather small studio. Another piece of information was delays in filming because of legal problems resolving around Twilight of the Dead, which was supposed to start filming in mid 2024. It is now slated for March 2025, which is now passed. And there's been no further updates on the film as of yet. And for those that did not know, the studio was supposed to make some kind of huge announcement back in 2024 at the actual mall where they filmed the original Dawn, but at that time, this never happened. Speculation is because of the legal problems they ran into.

[00:16:21]This leads me to believe that the truth might be somewhere in the middle of all of this. If I had to bet, was this movie filmed?

[00:16:30]I'd probably say no. But what if it was?

[00:16:34]What if this movie exists and none of us can see it? What if this movie actually was shot, even edited, but they were told, "Don't say a word about this ever again. You will not encroach on our territory."

[00:16:48]What if it exists out there? Think about that for a second. Maybe it's even pretty good. I mean, look at the images of David again. It blows my mind. If I had to guess, I really think this has to do more so with the Romero family and Twilight of the Dead. And it's not something I can be upset about. When you read the plot of this film, they're pretty similar. Ultimately, it seems like a Living Dead 2 has become a thing of the past that nobody can even talk about anymore. I'd love to talk to Marcus to see exactly what happened. But the problem is if he did have to sign some sort of NDA about this whole thing.

[00:17:23]He can't say anything. That's the story of Night of Living Dead 2, the Living Dead movie that completely vanished. If you or anybody you know has more information about this and can share it, please do down below. As always, this is your old pal, CHH, and I still believe that someday in the world of cinema, the dead will rise once again. Thank you to all of my Patreon supporters. Without you guys, this would not be possible. To get behind the scenes photos, videos, music, private live streams, and much more, you can subscribe to my Patreon for as little as a dollar a month. Thank you to my patrons.