Dawn of the Dead
Universal
Availability: Now
Starring: Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber and Ty Burrell
The Verdict: “Dead” offers gore and humor while paying homage to the horror genre. Good stuff!
Movie: 3 stars out of 5 stars
Extra Features: 3 stars out of 5 stars
After the preposterous “House of the Dead” and the pretentious “28 Days Later,” “Dawn of the Dead” is a welcome gorefest. This remake of the George Romero classic follows the lead of enjoyable horror endeavors like “Scream” and “Cabin Fever”-not only does the film pay homage to past fright flicks, but it mocks the genre with stupendous delight.
Predictably, “Dawn” opens with the happy, normal life of Ana (Sarah Polley). She comes home from her shift at the hospital, has a lovely talk with a little girl from next door and gets jiggy in the shower with her husband. At dawn the next morning, Ana awakens to a hellish surprise-her home and city has been overrun with the impolite undead, and she must play the Darwinian game of survival.
Along the way, Ana bumps into a silent, ticked-off cop (Ving Rhames) and a brooding TV salesman (Jake Weber) among others. These confused non-cannibals take refuge in a mall, yet they must deal with another evil in this sanctuary: redneck security guards.
Well, the script will not win any awards for invention or tact. Yet “Dawn” wastes no time with showy metaphors and charms the viewer with tongue-in-cheek dialogue, reckless action, selfish characters and disgusting ghoul innovations (after 70 minutes or so, there is a particularly unsettling development-the squeamish need not apply).
Needless to say, the acting takes a backseat to the flesh-eating. It’s not that the cast is inadequate, but they perform the usual horror routine: scream, argue, have sex, run, etc. When characterization briefly enters the equation, it comes off as forced or comical.
Moreover, the real stars of “Dawn” are the well-nourished man-eaters, and these are not George Romero’s walking dead. Prepare for an army of crack zombies, scrambling across the city for human treats. Apparently, these ghouls have an extreme case of the munchies.
And what varied ghouls. There is the one-armed Asian zombie, the morbidly obese senior citizen zombie and everyone’s favorite, the legless zombie who-despite his handicap-finds a way to scale the ceiling and fall on those unsuspecting humans. How inspirational.
Even more amusing, no reasonable explanation for this ghoul population ever arises. Sure, a televangelist claims hell ran out of real estate and the damned must walk the earth, but the makers of this film threw that in for a laugh.
Don’t fret, for the characters have no idea what’s going on, either. In one hilarious conversation, a cop asks the sarcastic playboy Steve (Ty Burrell), “Is everyone there dead?” Steve replies, “Yeah, in the sense that they all fell down, and then got up and started eating each other.”
Thank director Zack Snyder for this circus of guts and laughs. One can tell Snyder respects Romero’s classic saga and remembers the twisted fun of favorites like “The Little Shop of Horrors” and Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” trilogy. Yes, plot holes and predictability occur, but at least Snyder avoided the fidgety, asinine camerawork featured in the overrated “28 Days Later.” It’s nice to see the zombies feast, not the cameraman stumble around like he’s on angel dust.
On the whole, the “Dawn” remake is frenetic, funny, often mindless and repetitious, but never dull. Have fun as the “living” snipe ghouls resembling annoying celebrities. What’s wrong with a snicker or two during unexplained bloodbaths?
There are plenty of bloody extras for the curious sicko. “Raising the Dead” deals with make-up routines and the hundreds of extras for the undead onslaught. “Attack of the Living Dead” showcases the creation and stunts of the more memorable ghouls. “Splitting Headaches” illustrates the process of exploding zombie heads from gun wounds (my favorite among the sickening bunch).
Other extras expand the story of “Dawn.” “The Lost Tape” traces the survival of Andy, a gun shop owner and “Special Report” represents the fictional broadcast of the zombie threat. The deleted scenes delve into the characters a little more, but the real treat comes from the commentary track featuring Zack Snyder and producer Eric Newman. These filmmakers let out secret after secret, and Snyder’s humorous tenacity is reminiscent of Tarantino.
Concerning the “Unrated Director’s Cut” description, Snyder sums it up during the special introduction, “The movie contains more gore, a little more character.”