Dawn of the Dead
(2004)
review by Don't Feed the Dead

Dawn of the Dead is the defining reason as to why remakes are bad. I'm a firm believer that if you are going to redo somebody's work, you better have some damn good improvements on it. Unfortunately, DOTD gave me very little other than visuals to prove that the remake is king.

A slight deviation on the original story, DOTD focuses on a larger group of survivors trapped in a local Wisconsin MegaMall. The beginning of the film is probably the most solid 20 minutes of horror film history and provides the most bleak outlook for an apocalyptic future. Littered with explosions and dead crazies, the quaint suburb where Sarah Polley's character resides has been turned into a literal warzone by 7 AM. The dead do not move in sporadic zombified patterns, rather in a method similar to 28 Days Later, where they have instinct and an incredible amount of speed. These upgraded atributes cause more than their fare share of havoc as ravaging zombies create all sorts of traffic accidents and CGI mobs that would make Romero's head spin.

However, with the upgraded baddies comes the "upgraded" script, which is the major fault of this movie. Rather than taking the "helpless band of brothers" approach that Romero's original harboured, the remake reflects the bitter apathetic and oft sarcastic tones of today's society. I'll agree to a point that society as a whole regularly reflects these same points, but in contrast, shows an incredible amount of sympathy and human condition when tragedy strikes. Perhaps Snyder and Co. were looking to secure a mainline of black humor throughout the film. What I saw in this film was not black humor, but a barrage of one-liners that took away from the scare element of the film. To be honest, DOTD could have been a much more frightening film if there was less talk and more drag time. Yes, I'm actually requesting drag time in a movie because I feel that the dialogue often took away from the element of suspense and fear.

As skeptical as I am of the script, the acting (for their parts) was superb. Ving Rhames, Sarah Polley and Michael Kelly (CJ) were the absolute stars of this film. Rhames character was the most true to form in my eyes, focusing mainly on survivial, but also adding a human element to the film in longing for his brother and saving everyone's ass at least once. Polley was a bit overdramatic at times, but did a great job of selling the goody two shoes role that turns badass when she loses everything she had. As for Kelly (CJ), he puts on the greatest performance of all, successfully pulling off the heel to hero turn.

I do have mixed emotions on the special effects of this film, and I'm sure I'll be criticized heavily for my opinions. The original DOTD was such a great example of herding extras and utilizing basic (and cheap) SFX to gross out the audience. Although many of the visuals in the remake do take your breath away, I felt that too much CGI was used to convey the point. I acknowledge that actors cost money, and mob scenes are expensive, but you can actually tell that the crowds are computer fabricated. Computers are not scary to me, nor are their graphically generated monsters. People are scary to me, because each and every one of us contain the ability to take another's life. Maybe I'm going off on a tangent here, but to me, keeping the zombies "real" means a lot.

Granted, many of you will enjoy this movie, as I did for the most part. I do suggest that fans of the genre watch the original first to see if it has been upgraded, rather than jump into the remake and say "the old one was crap!". And if any good comes out of the remake, it will be that George Romero gets funding to bring closure to his series that has been one of the most inspiring sagas of horror film history.