Stars are stepping into the ranks of the undead for "Night of the Living Dead: Origins," a 3D CGI re-imagining of the George A. Romero zombie classic.

Danielle Harris, Bill Moseley, Jesse Corti, Joe Pilato, Alona Tal and Cornell Womack recently joined the project, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The animated feature is being directed by newcomer Zebediah de Soto.

'Origins' follows the survivors of a zombie attack as they attempt to come to grips with society's apocalyptic collapse.

Moseley ("The Devil's Rejects") is reprising the role he portrayed in a 1990 live-action remake "Living Dead": a Wall Street-type with an expense account attitude.

Harris ("Halloween II") plays a woman forced to come to grips with her family's absence; Corti ("Heroes") is voicing a news reporter; and Womack ("Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen") is a no-nonsense New York cop.

Pilato, who appeared in 1978's "Dawn of the Dead," is voicing Harry Cooper, a blue-collar worker who lives for his injured daughter, and Tal ("Supernatural") voices his wife, Helen, who blames her husband for all the ills of the world.

De Soto, whose background is rooted in commercial work, said some of the casting is "a nod to Romero fans. Horror is a genre and zombie movies are a subgenre that people have been following for years and years."

Sheltered from television and movies in his youth, De Soto was profoundly moved when he finally saw Romero's "Night of the Living Dead"; in fact, it created an obsession.

"When you're not allowed to watch TV and then you see this movie where this broadcaster speaks about this (zombie) disaster, it translated as so real to me," he said.

De Soto hopes to bring a sense of scope to 'Origins,' and he is counting on the CGI technology that he and his New Golden Digital effects company are developing.

"I wanted to make this look like a living Monet; it's expressionism," he explained. "It's going to be the first zombie movie played on a epic scale. This is the 'Empire of the Sun' of zombie films. ... I lived through the L.A. riots and saw the city on fire; I remember seeing people running, people getting pulled out of cars. And with 9/11, these images have been ingrained on people of my generation. I just thought that is the way it would really be, a lot of chaos."