There are numerous revised versions of the film with content added, deleted, rearranged, or more heavily modified. From its initial release into the public domain, Night of the Living Dead was widely screened from inferior prints in grindhouse theaters, a trend that continued among the bottom-tier home video companies. The first major revisions of Night of the Living Dead involved colorization by home video distributors. Hal Roach Studios released a colorized version in 1986 that featured ghouls with pale green skin.[146][147] Another colorized version appeared in 1997 from Anchor Bay Entertainment with grey-skinned zombies.[148] In 2009, Legend Films co-produced a colorized 3D version of the film with PassmoreLab, a company that converts 2-D film into 3-D format.[149] The film was theatrically released on October 14, 2010.[150] According to Legend Films founder Barry Sandrew, Night of the Living Dead is the first entirely live action 2-D film to be converted to 3-D.[151]
In 1999, co-writer Russo released a modified version called Night of the Living Dead: 30th Anniversary Edition.[152] He filmed additional scenes and recorded a revised soundtrack composed by Scott Vladimir Licina. In an interview with Fangoria magazine, Russo explained that he wanted to "give the movie a more modern pace".[153] Russo took liberties with the original script. The additions are neither clearly identified nor even listed. Entertainment Weekly reported "no bad blood" between Russo and Romero. The magazine quoted Romero as saying, "I didn't want to touch Night of the Living Dead".[154] Critics disliked the revised film, notably Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News, who promised to permanently ban anyone from his publication who offered positive criticism of the film.[155][156]
A collaborative animated project known as Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated was screened at several film festivals[157] and was released onto DVD on July 27, 2010, by Wild Eye Releasing.[158][159] This project aims to "reanimate" the 1968 film by replacing Romero's celluloid images with animation done in a wide variety of styles by artists from around the world, laid over the original audio from Romero's version.[160] Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated was nominated in the category of Best Independent Production (film, documentary or short) for the 8th Annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards.[161]
Starting in 2015, and working from the original camera negatives and audio track elements, a 4K digital restoration of Night of the Living Dead was undertaken by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and The Film Foundation.[162] The fully restored version was shown in November 2016 as part of To Save and Project: The 14th MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation.[163][164] This same restoration was released on Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection on February 13, 2018,[141] and on Ultra HD Blu-ray on October 4, 2022.[165]
