Dawn of the Dead | | Cast : | Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber, Mekhi Phifer | | Director : | Zack Snyder | | Studio : | Universal Studios Ho | | Format : | Widescreen, Director's Cut | | Released Date : | March 19, 2004 | | DVD Released Date : | February 08, 2005 | | Language : | Spanish (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | Unrated | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | July 29, 2005 | | Summary | What's so unrated about it? | Content
 | First off, I loved this movie...I just thought it was really awsome. I think one of the best things about the movie was the opening credits when they were showing the world getting overrun by zombies while they were playing johnny cash's "the man comes around"...that was so awsome. The only thing bad that I can say about this movie was this so-called "unrated" version dvd. I mean I've watched the dvd several times and I just don't see anything "unrated" about it, it just looks exactly the same as the theatrical version. Well, anyway thats all I really wanted to say. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 28, 2005 | | Summary | May Well Be The Alltime Best Of The 'Living Dead' Subgenre | Content
| Certainly standing on par with the other greats of its type (i.e. "Evil Dead 2", the "Resident Evil"s, etc.), the 2004 "Dawn Of the Dead" is actually a voracious contender for the crown of the best movie of its kind, and one of the greatest of any genre, period. This remake actually far surpasses the 1978 original (in my personal opinion that one was never on a level with most of George Romero's other movies. Certainly not bad though) and is one of the best-made extreme horror movies ever, hands down. In terms of intensity and sheer visceral carnage it's in the realm of movies like "The House Of 1000 Corpses", the best of the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre"s and the most graphic of the brilliant "Hellraiser" saga.
Opening in the early dawn hours with only a few minutes of hints of what's to come before unleashing itself on the screen in an onslaught of the living dead - a faster, more savage breed than has been seen before, except perhaps in "Return Of The Living Dead" - it's well known that in both the original and the remake the focus is on a shopping mall where small bands of survivors manage to congregate. Personally, I think a bit too much has been made of the 'mall hideout as a metaphor for modern society' supposed analogy; rather it's just the most ideal place to make a stand if you're going to have to hole up for a while. It's big, solid and hard to bust into with all the thick walls, reinforced doors and so on of today; it's high enough off the ground for the roof to provide a lookout for the surrounding area; and it's stocked to the rafters with food and items that can be utilized as weapons in a crisis. Of course, being hard to bust into and being impossible to bust into are too very different things, and you can't stay locked inside forever, while the zombie hordes are seemingly endless.
The selection of characters gathered into this desperate last stand could not have been chosen better by the filmmakers, nor could the actors and actresses who play them. The microcosm of society that's brought together is an at-times volatile mix, and the way each character reacts, and the way this little micro-society begins to develop and interact as a whole is extremely interesting, with characters shifting - some for the better and some for the worse - as the situation alternately improves and worsens beyond belief. As a whole, the group is one that's made up of strangers to each other and reacts to the horror and shock of this literally dawning of the dead in a way one would expect of the human race: some are helpful and form the backbone of strength for the weaker and more helpless members, some react to the situation by being antagonistic and ruthless almost to the point of murderous, and others are planted in the middle, leaving you from the beginning wondering which way they're going to sway. But "Dawn Of The Dead" brings in a ray of hope in that as the survivors become to increasingly depend on one another, and to know one another - sometimes in spite of themselves - the group as a whole starts to sway more towards the attitudes and demeanor of the former type of reactions than the latter two. It may be a leap of faith that humanity's last vestiges would rally like this, and it's an opposite view than has been seen is some other, less optimistic (but still effective) examples of the genre like "Day Of The Dead" but it's powerful, and it's the Only way the vastly outnumbered group has a chance against the undead legions.
Sarah Polley is outstanding as Ana, one of two anchors of both the movie and the group, a powerful female protagonist in the rough vein (but a bit better rounded) of Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor character from "Terminator 2"; one of the unofficial 'leaders' of the survivors and a self-appointed conscience of the group who steadfastly refuses to let the "leave 'em behind" mentality of some of the more ruthless team members in the early going prevail. Ving Rhames is a physical anchor of the group who, when the heavy bloodletting gets going is like the team's tank. If he had given as close to this performance as possible (within the framework of what the different script would allow) in a thriller, an action movie or especially a straight drama I honestly think he may have been nominated for an Oscar, because he gives Exactly the kind of performance the Academy seems to look for in male leads (not so much in female leads) and does it to perfection; I don't think the Academy is ever going to even look at a movie like this though and even if they did, and secretly loved it, I suspect they'd hesitate to admit it. Maybe I'm paranoid. The other performer who stayed in my mind the most is Lindy Booth as Nicole, one of the younger and more naive of the survivors, who brings both a vulnerabilty and a welcome dose of cute appeal to the show - not that Sarah and the other females of the movie aren't hot, but it's the Nicole character's Personality (in addition to her obvious good looks) that make her distinct - at times she's bright-eyed and perky, without coming off as a total ditz, and at other times she's doe-eyed and so terrified it makes it all the more impressive when she charges right into the danger to try and rescue one of the endangered survivors.
Gruesome, bombastic, action-packed (show this to an action movie fan and you might get a convert over to horrordom for life) and intelligent with dashes of romance and sexiness to boot, and some very moving dramatic scenes. Plus the DVD extras - unlike so many discs it's not just all 'behind-the-scenes' stuff showing how everything is done (I never watch those anyway; don't want to risk them taking some of the magic of movies away) - there are actual short films adding to the experience, including a camcorder-captured log of a survivor who's found refuge elsewhere than in the mall, and an at-times humourous but still chilling 'breaking news' filmreel that over the course of a day tracks the course of the zombies's onslaught on the entire globe.
Tremendously great film, but this uncut masterpiece isn't for the squeamish. Shockingly horrifying and feels so dead-on Believable. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 27, 2005 | | Summary | Nihilism at it's Finest | Content
| Nihilism: The belief that destruction of existing political or social institutions is necessary for future improvement.
The remake of Dawn of the Dead is as close to perfection as a horror movie can get. I can't believe I just wrote that! (especially about a remake). Anyway, Zack Snyder sets the tone of horror right from the opening credits and maintains it through the very last end credit. This is no small task. But, hey this guy's obviously got a pair trying to remake Romero. The cast is perfect, the violence abounds and the message is chilling. Snyder keeps the viewer in a state of suspense throughout the film. Call me sadistic but I love the fact that every single one of these characters gets it in the end. What a horrifying thought, nothing but zombies roaming the earth. As for a social commentary, at this point nihilism may be the only thing left to save our sorry world from mall culture and consumerism. A must see, must own DVD for horror fans. Highest Recommendation. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 24, 2005 | | Summary | Due to be a cult classic | Content
| This movie was hillarious, not a bad way to spend an afternoon- your not going to get anything educational out of it, but its a good movie to kind of have a movie night in with friends. Its not particularlly scary, its just gruesome. Instant classic that does a great job at making itself not take itself to seriously. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 22, 2005 | | Summary | A super gory feast for the eyes! | Content
| When I heard some guy named Zack Snyder planned on lensing a remake of George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead," I chuckled. This chap must really have some heavy-duty cajones, I thought to myself. The fans will eat him up faster than a Romero zombie for daring to tamper with this modern horror classic. And it looks like more than a few fanboys ripped Snyder a new you know what. After viewing the film, and I was going to watch it no matter how poorly it fared with the fans, I'm not going to beat the director over the head. I possess an ability to watch most remakes without overly comparing them to the original effort. I also recognize that Hollywood is a shameless money machine that would remake "Birth of a Nation" if they thought it would turn a profit. Moaning and groaning over the fact that someone greenlighted a Romero remake is an exercise in futility. In fact, committing such an unpardonable "sin" can have positive benefits. It might, for example, inspire a new generation of moviegoers to watch the original Romero trilogy. A successful remake can also lead to more horror movies in general, a few of which might actually become cult classics in their own right. This is good.
The most important aspect of Snyder's remake is that he didn't attempt to reproduce Romero's classic shot for shot. No Gus Van Sant's "Psycho" here, thank heavens. There is a mall where a small group of survivors hide from the hordes of the undead, however, and it all starts with the beautiful Ana (Sarah Polley) in her beautiful little suburban neighborhood roughly several hours before the world goes to hell in a hand basket. The trouble starts in earnest when Ana's significant other suffers a case of...well, zombie-itis after being attacked by a young girl. Then he morphs into a flesheater quicker than you can say "Romero" and tries to kill Ana. She manages to escape from the house only to discover her quiet little 'burb now resembles a war zone. Houses burn, people race around in a panic, and the zombies are on the move. Ana lives in Wisconsin, but it soon becomes clear that whatever is going on is starting to assume global dimensions. A virus? A biological weapon of some sort? Who knows? What we do know is that the dead are starting to outnumber the living. Ana won't survive long if she can't find a safe place to hide out. What's a girl to do?
Finding a police officer named Kenneth (Ving Rhames) might help the situation, for starters. Ana and Kenneth soon hook up with a few other stragglers, namely Andre (Mekhi Phifer) and his pregnant girlfriend Luda (Inna Korobkina), Michael (Jake Weber), and eventually a whole lot of other folks once the group finds their way into a mall. The first order of business is to convince a high-strung security guard, the foul-mouthed and gun toting CJ (Michael Kelly), to let them stay in the building. The tension throttles down a bit once things settle down in the mall, but only for a time. It becomes apparent to the people trapped inside that the whole world has essentially collapsed and, what's far worse for their situation, at least a few million of the newly risen dead seek to enter the very structure in which they reside. Occasional forays through the labyrinthine mall result in skirmishes with zombies that leave a few minor characters dead as doornails. But thanks to a television report that tells our heroes that shooting the zombies in the head will kill them, plans start to percolate. Talk about getting down to a harbor and sailing for an island that will almost assuredly be undead free captures the imagination and soon becomes a reality. Our group will bicker, build really neat weapons to fight off the zombies, and a few will even die in the attempt to grab a few more precious days of life.
"Dawn of the Dead" is a pretty entertaining movie even if it can't hold a candle to Romero's original epic. That's acceptable, however, because Snyder gives us gallons of gore and some very cool special effects to fill in the cracks. If you're the sort of individual who can't understand the allure of exploding heads, give this movie a pass because we get a bunch of noggins cracking wide open here. We also get lots of gut munching, arterial sprays, and assorted other grotesqueries. Snyder also gives us superfast zombies who can run the 100-yard dash in about two seconds. All of these pluses are wrapped up in a movie that doesn't hesitate to tug at your heart strings--see the scenes involving the tragic fate of Andy at the gun store or Luda's pregnancy--even as the action flies fast and furious. "Dawn of the Dead" even sports a few giggles, such as Kenneth and Andy's celebrity shoot-a-thon from their respective positions on the roof of the mall and the gun shop. I could go on and on with all of the neat things that really work in this remake, but you should just go out and pick up a copy on your own. It's a movie worth owning on DVD.
The supplements included on the disc are also worth the price of admission. Deleted scenes, a commentary track with director Snyder and producer Eric Newman, several worthwhile featurettes, and a few other goodies make this DVD a fun ride indeed. I wasn't as impressed with the extra called "Andy's Terrifying Last Days," which I thought was a bit amateurish, but the extra ten minutes of footage--with extra gore--in the director's cut is all to the good. Definitely give Snyder's homage a chance the next time you go to the video store. I hope he makes another zombie picture in the near future.
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