January 13th, 2010 by admin

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Tagline: “When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth.”

I’d like to start this review by committing horror movie blasphemy. Ready? Here goes. George Romero’s original three Dead movies are overrated (I’m not even going to comment on the train wreck which is Land of the Dead). While entertaining, they are also low-budget flicks with average acting and pacing about as slow as the shambling zombies depicted therein. Hardly the holy trinity which they’ve been made out to be.

And let’s not forget the much-lauded social criticism. Racism? Rampant consumerism? It’s all handled with the subtlety of a hammer to the back of the head. Listen, if I want social commentary in a movie, I’ll watch Gandhi or Norma Rae. When I sit down for a zombie movie, I want non-stop action and buckets of gore. Period. Anything else is just a bloody cherry on top of my horror sundae. It’s for these reasons (and others, which I’ll detail later) that I find the 2004 version of Dawn of the Dead to be more satisfying than the original.

Adapted by James Gunn (Scooby Doo) from the original 1978 George A. Romero screenplay, Dawn of the Dead opens by allowing us to get briefly acquainted with the movie’s central protagonist, a pretty young nurse named Ana (Sarah Polley). But her safe suburban lifestyle is short lived, and a mysterious epidemic ensures that Ana is fleeing from ravenous zombies before the movie even hits the ten minute mark. She soon meets Kenneth (Ving Rhames), a tough-as-nails cop, and moments later they come across
Michael (Jake Weber), a soft-spoken but natural leader, Andre (Mekhi Phifer), a man with a questionable past, and Luda (Inna Korobkina), Andre’s pregnant girlfriend.

They take refuge in a sprawling shopping mall, but quickly run afoul of the
less-than-hospitable security guards C.J. (Michael Kelly), Bart (Michael Barry), and Terry (Kevin Zegers). More characters are added later, notably Steve (Ty Burrell), a smart-ass yuppie, and Andy (Bruce Bohne), the owner of a nearby gun shop. As the horrible infection spreads across the globe, and the situation becomes increasingly desperate, the characters come to realize that no help is coming from the outside. If they are to survive, they must take matters into their own hands. Luckily for us, that involves chainsaws,
armor-reinforced parking shuttles, and propane tanks rigged into makeshift bombs.
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November 9th, 2009 by admin

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Tagline: “When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth.”

I’d like to start this review by committing horror movie blasphemy. Ready? Here goes. George Romero’s original three Dead movies are overrated (I’m not even going to comment on the train wreck which is Land of the Dead). While entertaining, they are also low-budget flicks with average acting and pacing about as slow as the shambling zombies depicted therein. Hardly the holy trinity which they’ve been made out to be.

And let’s not forget the much-lauded social criticism. Racism? Rampant consumerism? It’s all handled with the subtlety of a hammer to the back of the head. Listen, if I want social commentary in a movie, I’ll watch Gandhi or Norma Rae. When I sit down for a zombie movie, I want non-stop action and buckets of gore. Period. Anything else is just a bloody cherry on top of my horror sundae. It’s for these reasons (and others, which I’ll detail later) that I find the 2004 version of Dawn of the Dead to be more satisfying than the original.
Read the rest of this entry »