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yendiDawn of the Dead. 2004. Directed by Zack Snyder. Written by James Gunn. Released by Universal.
Let's get one thing straight: 2004's Dawn of the Dead is much more than a remake of George Romero's 1978 classic. Sure, it gives Romero a credit for original screenplay, and the one-line conceit -- humans fight off the zombie apocalypse at a mall -- is the same, but that's where things end. A typical remake tries to tell a story better than, or offer a commentary on, the original movie, or at least presents a similar cast of characters. This one just takes that one concept and runs in a completely different direction.
We start before the zombies have risen, somewhere near Milwaukee. Ana, a nurse, is finishing up a busy day as we hear reports of a patient going crazy and biting folks, and other fun stuff. She heads home to her nice suburban neighborhood, chats with one of the neighborhood girls, and then makes sweet love to her husband in the shower. As we all know, having sex in a horror movie is a bad thing, and while they're getting busy, they miss a special news bulletin on TV announcing that the world's gone to hell in a handbasket, and they head to bed.
They wake up just before dawn* when the neighborhood urchin comes into their house (it's never stated, but we assume that they live in one of those annoying suburbs where people leave the doors unlocked, naively assuming their neighbors won't turn into ravaging cannibalistic monsters and eat them). By the time the husband fully wakes up and realizes that this is no longer a normal little girl, the zombie has taken a huge chunk out of his neck. Ana throws the girl into the hallway, and we get our first real indicator that these aren't Romero zombies: the girl runs back towards the bedroom (getting the door slammed in her face in the nick of time). No shambling here.
Ana starts to call 911 as her hubby bleeds out through his neck wound, but as she's on hold, we see him stand up! Yay! He's okay! Oh, wait. He attacks Ana, but she ducks, grabs her car keys, and dives into the bathroom. Hubby eventually barrels through the door, but she makes it out the window in time, only to come across absolute chaos. Her neighbor is ready to shoot her until he gets hit by an ambulance; houses are on fire; folks are chasing down and eating other folks. Hubby comes out of the house, but Ana makes it into her car. Hubby gives chase, but loses interest when he finds another human to eat. As Ana drives away (dodging zombies, crazed humans, and car accidents), she listens to the radio reporting chaos everywhere. and eventually (after dodging a carjacker), she crashes down an embankment and we cut to the credits.
As Johnny Cash's "The Man Comes Around" plays, we hear snippets of news conferences and press releases giving us the usual exposition: the dead have come to life, no one knows why, the world is in chaos, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria, etc. The key thing to know about the zombies here is that they spread their zombie cooties by biting, but folks who die of non-zombie related causes do not come back to life.
Ana wakes up to find a cop named Kenneth (played by Ving Rhames) pointing a shotgun at her head. The two of them meet another group featuring a gangbanger named Andre, his pregnant girlfriend Luda, and another guy named Michael. The latter seems to show the most common sense, stopping Andre from shooting at the cop and suggesting the local mall as a good spot to hole up. The group makes it there just before a one-armed zombie** chases them down.
At the mall, they do the logical thing and split up. Um, wait. They do a stupid thing and split up. Michael checks out a sporting goods store while Andre explores the emergency exit areas, getting a few false scares. Eventually, Michael discovers that the mall hired a zombie as their janitor! Well, he might not have been that way when he came to the mall, but he sure is now! A fight breaks out, and Michael survives by stabbing the zombie through the brain with a broken croquet mallet. Meanwhile, a security guard zombie attacks the three who remained at the mall's fountain, almost killing Kenneth until Ana shoots it.
The whole gang heads for the second floor of the mall, where three more security guards (none of them zombies) greet them at gunpoint and tell them to get out. One guard seems amenable to letting the refugees in, but his boss (C.J.) doesn't want to budge. Eventually, he agrees to let them stay as prisoners. We get a few scenes of exposition featuring Tom Savini as a zombie killer on the few news channels still broadcasting, and we learn that Luda was scratched by a zombie! Oh noes!
After various scenes of character development (the cop and the gang-banger bond!), some plot (there's a guy named Andy at the gun store across the street) and a good night's sleep, Ana convinces the sympathetic security guard to let them have a little bit more freedom. Shortly afterwards, a truck tries to get to the mall, and a rooftop confrontation between the prisoners (who want to help the folks in the truck) and the security guards (who don't) leads to a struggle in which the sympathetic guard switches sides, and the folks from the truck are rescued.
Our new folks include a rich and snarky asshole named Steve (who informs Kenneth that the army base where the latter's brother was deployed has been overrun), a tough truck driver named Norma, a nice girl named Nicole, Nicole's father Frank, a hottie named Monica, some random straight guy named Tucker, a random gay guy named Glen, and an unnamed fat woman in a wheelbarrow.
If there's one thing worse than having sex in a horror movie, it's being a fat chick in a wheelbarrow in a horror movie. They never make it. Sure enough, before we can find out her name, she dies and then comes back to (un)life before being brained by Ana. Unfortunately, Frank was also bitten in the attacks. The heroes agree that he has to die, much to the chagrin of Nicole. Michael is planning on doing the deed, but Ana is horrified (and Michael clearly has a crush on the recently-widowed nurse). Eventually, they agree that Kenneth will keep watch over Frank, and if he zombifies, they'll kill him. That night, we hear the zombie snarls from off-camera, and Kenneth does what he promised.
We get a montage showing the usual stuff: lots of "shopping", sex, zombie shooting, graffiti, and other hobbies to define our rather large cast. Asshole Steve, not understanding the whole "foreshadowing" thing, tells Sarah, "I ever turn into one of those things... do me a favor, blow my fuckin' head off." Never say stuff like that in a horror movie.
Eventually, the fun has to end when the power goes out, and the generator is in the underground parking garage. Which, of course, is open to the outside world, and thus to zombies. Kenneth, Michael, CJ, and the third (and least interesting) security guard head down there. At first, all they find is a cute little puppy -- turns out that the zombies are picky eaters, and won't harm animals. Then, however, a legless (but enterprising) zombie monkey-bars his way along the pipes and attacks the doomed security guard. As more zombies run after the heroes, they make it to the generator and get behind the fence, but not before the wounded guard becomes zombie food.
Meanwhile, back in the mall, Luda has died and zombiefied. Andre has tied her down (zombie bondage!), and even in zombie form, she's able to give birth. But when Norma checks on them and sees the state Luda's in, she offs the zombie, thus upsetting Andre (widowed twice in the span of minutes, and still holding his newborn child). Andre and Norma kill each other. The others check out the gunshots, and see the zombie baby! It's many times worse than the Vistor Baby in V was.***
The heroes realize they can't live forever at the mall, so they come up with a plan. They'll rig a couple of trucks as transport and make a break for the marina, where Steve has a boat docked. Since zombies can't swim****, they should be safe on the water.
However, Andy (the guy at the gun store across the street) isn't going to last that long, as gun stores tend to have less food than malls. So Kenneth comes up with a plan: he'll send the dog over there with food supplies! It's a great plan, but it falls apart when the zombies manage to pry open the security door behind the dog, and get to Andy. Nicole, who has bonded with the dog in the wake of her dad's death, is horrified, and takes Norma's truck over to the store to try to rescue it. Alas, she gets trapped inside, even as we see a now-zombified Andy on the roof of the store.
Most of the heroes decide to rescue the girl (although Steve stays behind to guard the mall entrance), running through the sewers to get near the store, and then making a desperate break to the store itself. They loot the necessary guns and ammo, and are shocked to find that Nicole has survived as well. Their retreat doesn't go nearly as well, however, as Tucker gets injured en route, and although CJ tries to drag him to safety, it's too late for him.
Worse, when they get back to the mall, Steve has left his post, and the door is locked. The zombies are nearly on top of the heroes when Ana finally hears the pounding and opens the door. Alas, the zombie were too close, and are able to make it through into the mall.
We now hit the endgame, as all of the survivors (including asshole Steve) get to the trucks and make a break for it. The trucks are armored, have snowplows attached,, and have slots for guns and chainsaws to attack the undead. Using a propane tank and a shotgun*****, they manage to bomb a path through the undead, allowing them room to maneuver.
Unfortunately, a sharp turn causes Glen to lose control of his chainsaw, slicing through Monica, and causing Kenneth (driving the rear truck) to crash. Steve seizes the opportunity to make a run for it (not helping the two other survivors -- Kenneth or the nice security guard, who is named Terry -- by all rights he's the sort of character who should have died two hours ago, so his name really didn't matter until now). Naturally, he meets a zombie.
By the time the other truck gets back there, Steve has zombified, and Ana remembers his ironic words from earlier. She does, however, remember to take his boat keys.
With the few survivors (Kenneth, CJ, Terry, Ana, Michael, and Nicole) consolidated in one truck, they make it to the marina, but are mobbed by zombies. CJ is unable to make it out of the truck in time, and shoots another propane tank to take out a ton of zombies with him.
The rest make it to the boat, but Michael reveals that he got bit earlier, and refuses to go with them, breaking Ana's heart yet again. The surviving four sail off into the sunset as Michael, not wanting to become a zombie, blows his brains out, and we fade to credits.
But wait! There's more! As the credits roll (playing Jim Caroll's "People who Died"), we see video cam clips of the heroes sailing, discovering dead bodies at sea, and eventually drifting to an island, where they're overwhlemed by a horde of zombies! It was all for naught!
Dawn of the Dead works much better than it has a right to, largely because of a damned fine script by James Gunn (who will be showing up in this series of reviews a few more times), and a great cast. Sarah Polley (Ana), Ving Rhames (Kenneth), Jake Weber (Michael), and Mekhi Phifer (Andre) anchor the cast, and great character actors like Matt Frewer (poor doomed Frank), Jayne Eastwood (Norma), and Michael Kelly (CJ) all move things along nicely.
First-time director Zack Snyder does a solid job moving things along, only occasionally indulging in crap like slow-mo images of shotgun shells flying through the air, and he handles some scenes (especially the communication with Andy, trapped at the gun store and only able to communicate by whiteboard) quite nicely. He also gives us a fine soundtrack, with Richard Cheese joining Cash and Caroll as highlights. And, of course, the special effects in this movie are some of the best zombie effects that have hit the screen in ages.
Dawn of the Dead is simply a great zombie flick, one of the two or three best modern (post-1969) zombie movies not directed by Romero himself. I do highly recommend the extended cut on the DVD, as the extra scenes do add to the characters, and the bonuses (including a short film chronicling the story of Andy in the gun store) really do enhance the movie.
*Surprised? It's not Lunch Hour of the Dead.
**He killed the wife of zombie Richard Kimble.
***Not least because it doesn't look like it's made out of cheap plastic.
****A little-known scientific fact. They also suck at golf.
*****Something Hank Hill should mention in his sales spiels.
Let's get one thing straight: 2004's Dawn of the Dead is much more than a remake of George Romero's 1978 classic. Sure, it gives Romero a credit for original screenplay, and the one-line conceit -- humans fight off the zombie apocalypse at a mall -- is the same, but that's where things end. A typical remake tries to tell a story better than, or offer a commentary on, the original movie, or at least presents a similar cast of characters. This one just takes that one concept and runs in a completely different direction.
We start before the zombies have risen, somewhere near Milwaukee. Ana, a nurse, is finishing up a busy day as we hear reports of a patient going crazy and biting folks, and other fun stuff. She heads home to her nice suburban neighborhood, chats with one of the neighborhood girls, and then makes sweet love to her husband in the shower. As we all know, having sex in a horror movie is a bad thing, and while they're getting busy, they miss a special news bulletin on TV announcing that the world's gone to hell in a handbasket, and they head to bed.
They wake up just before dawn* when the neighborhood urchin comes into their house (it's never stated, but we assume that they live in one of those annoying suburbs where people leave the doors unlocked, naively assuming their neighbors won't turn into ravaging cannibalistic monsters and eat them). By the time the husband fully wakes up and realizes that this is no longer a normal little girl, the zombie has taken a huge chunk out of his neck. Ana throws the girl into the hallway, and we get our first real indicator that these aren't Romero zombies: the girl runs back towards the bedroom (getting the door slammed in her face in the nick of time). No shambling here.
Ana starts to call 911 as her hubby bleeds out through his neck wound, but as she's on hold, we see him stand up! Yay! He's okay! Oh, wait. He attacks Ana, but she ducks, grabs her car keys, and dives into the bathroom. Hubby eventually barrels through the door, but she makes it out the window in time, only to come across absolute chaos. Her neighbor is ready to shoot her until he gets hit by an ambulance; houses are on fire; folks are chasing down and eating other folks. Hubby comes out of the house, but Ana makes it into her car. Hubby gives chase, but loses interest when he finds another human to eat. As Ana drives away (dodging zombies, crazed humans, and car accidents), she listens to the radio reporting chaos everywhere. and eventually (after dodging a carjacker), she crashes down an embankment and we cut to the credits.
As Johnny Cash's "The Man Comes Around" plays, we hear snippets of news conferences and press releases giving us the usual exposition: the dead have come to life, no one knows why, the world is in chaos, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria, etc. The key thing to know about the zombies here is that they spread their zombie cooties by biting, but folks who die of non-zombie related causes do not come back to life.
Ana wakes up to find a cop named Kenneth (played by Ving Rhames) pointing a shotgun at her head. The two of them meet another group featuring a gangbanger named Andre, his pregnant girlfriend Luda, and another guy named Michael. The latter seems to show the most common sense, stopping Andre from shooting at the cop and suggesting the local mall as a good spot to hole up. The group makes it there just before a one-armed zombie** chases them down.
At the mall, they do the logical thing and split up. Um, wait. They do a stupid thing and split up. Michael checks out a sporting goods store while Andre explores the emergency exit areas, getting a few false scares. Eventually, Michael discovers that the mall hired a zombie as their janitor! Well, he might not have been that way when he came to the mall, but he sure is now! A fight breaks out, and Michael survives by stabbing the zombie through the brain with a broken croquet mallet. Meanwhile, a security guard zombie attacks the three who remained at the mall's fountain, almost killing Kenneth until Ana shoots it.
The whole gang heads for the second floor of the mall, where three more security guards (none of them zombies) greet them at gunpoint and tell them to get out. One guard seems amenable to letting the refugees in, but his boss (C.J.) doesn't want to budge. Eventually, he agrees to let them stay as prisoners. We get a few scenes of exposition featuring Tom Savini as a zombie killer on the few news channels still broadcasting, and we learn that Luda was scratched by a zombie! Oh noes!
After various scenes of character development (the cop and the gang-banger bond!), some plot (there's a guy named Andy at the gun store across the street) and a good night's sleep, Ana convinces the sympathetic security guard to let them have a little bit more freedom. Shortly afterwards, a truck tries to get to the mall, and a rooftop confrontation between the prisoners (who want to help the folks in the truck) and the security guards (who don't) leads to a struggle in which the sympathetic guard switches sides, and the folks from the truck are rescued.
Our new folks include a rich and snarky asshole named Steve (who informs Kenneth that the army base where the latter's brother was deployed has been overrun), a tough truck driver named Norma, a nice girl named Nicole, Nicole's father Frank, a hottie named Monica, some random straight guy named Tucker, a random gay guy named Glen, and an unnamed fat woman in a wheelbarrow.
If there's one thing worse than having sex in a horror movie, it's being a fat chick in a wheelbarrow in a horror movie. They never make it. Sure enough, before we can find out her name, she dies and then comes back to (un)life before being brained by Ana. Unfortunately, Frank was also bitten in the attacks. The heroes agree that he has to die, much to the chagrin of Nicole. Michael is planning on doing the deed, but Ana is horrified (and Michael clearly has a crush on the recently-widowed nurse). Eventually, they agree that Kenneth will keep watch over Frank, and if he zombifies, they'll kill him. That night, we hear the zombie snarls from off-camera, and Kenneth does what he promised.
We get a montage showing the usual stuff: lots of "shopping", sex, zombie shooting, graffiti, and other hobbies to define our rather large cast. Asshole Steve, not understanding the whole "foreshadowing" thing, tells Sarah, "I ever turn into one of those things... do me a favor, blow my fuckin' head off." Never say stuff like that in a horror movie.
Eventually, the fun has to end when the power goes out, and the generator is in the underground parking garage. Which, of course, is open to the outside world, and thus to zombies. Kenneth, Michael, CJ, and the third (and least interesting) security guard head down there. At first, all they find is a cute little puppy -- turns out that the zombies are picky eaters, and won't harm animals. Then, however, a legless (but enterprising) zombie monkey-bars his way along the pipes and attacks the doomed security guard. As more zombies run after the heroes, they make it to the generator and get behind the fence, but not before the wounded guard becomes zombie food.
Meanwhile, back in the mall, Luda has died and zombiefied. Andre has tied her down (zombie bondage!), and even in zombie form, she's able to give birth. But when Norma checks on them and sees the state Luda's in, she offs the zombie, thus upsetting Andre (widowed twice in the span of minutes, and still holding his newborn child). Andre and Norma kill each other. The others check out the gunshots, and see the zombie baby! It's many times worse than the Vistor Baby in V was.***
The heroes realize they can't live forever at the mall, so they come up with a plan. They'll rig a couple of trucks as transport and make a break for the marina, where Steve has a boat docked. Since zombies can't swim****, they should be safe on the water.
However, Andy (the guy at the gun store across the street) isn't going to last that long, as gun stores tend to have less food than malls. So Kenneth comes up with a plan: he'll send the dog over there with food supplies! It's a great plan, but it falls apart when the zombies manage to pry open the security door behind the dog, and get to Andy. Nicole, who has bonded with the dog in the wake of her dad's death, is horrified, and takes Norma's truck over to the store to try to rescue it. Alas, she gets trapped inside, even as we see a now-zombified Andy on the roof of the store.
Most of the heroes decide to rescue the girl (although Steve stays behind to guard the mall entrance), running through the sewers to get near the store, and then making a desperate break to the store itself. They loot the necessary guns and ammo, and are shocked to find that Nicole has survived as well. Their retreat doesn't go nearly as well, however, as Tucker gets injured en route, and although CJ tries to drag him to safety, it's too late for him.
Worse, when they get back to the mall, Steve has left his post, and the door is locked. The zombies are nearly on top of the heroes when Ana finally hears the pounding and opens the door. Alas, the zombie were too close, and are able to make it through into the mall.
We now hit the endgame, as all of the survivors (including asshole Steve) get to the trucks and make a break for it. The trucks are armored, have snowplows attached,, and have slots for guns and chainsaws to attack the undead. Using a propane tank and a shotgun*****, they manage to bomb a path through the undead, allowing them room to maneuver.
Unfortunately, a sharp turn causes Glen to lose control of his chainsaw, slicing through Monica, and causing Kenneth (driving the rear truck) to crash. Steve seizes the opportunity to make a run for it (not helping the two other survivors -- Kenneth or the nice security guard, who is named Terry -- by all rights he's the sort of character who should have died two hours ago, so his name really didn't matter until now). Naturally, he meets a zombie.
By the time the other truck gets back there, Steve has zombified, and Ana remembers his ironic words from earlier. She does, however, remember to take his boat keys.
With the few survivors (Kenneth, CJ, Terry, Ana, Michael, and Nicole) consolidated in one truck, they make it to the marina, but are mobbed by zombies. CJ is unable to make it out of the truck in time, and shoots another propane tank to take out a ton of zombies with him.
The rest make it to the boat, but Michael reveals that he got bit earlier, and refuses to go with them, breaking Ana's heart yet again. The surviving four sail off into the sunset as Michael, not wanting to become a zombie, blows his brains out, and we fade to credits.
But wait! There's more! As the credits roll (playing Jim Caroll's "People who Died"), we see video cam clips of the heroes sailing, discovering dead bodies at sea, and eventually drifting to an island, where they're overwhlemed by a horde of zombies! It was all for naught!
Dawn of the Dead works much better than it has a right to, largely because of a damned fine script by James Gunn (who will be showing up in this series of reviews a few more times), and a great cast. Sarah Polley (Ana), Ving Rhames (Kenneth), Jake Weber (Michael), and Mekhi Phifer (Andre) anchor the cast, and great character actors like Matt Frewer (poor doomed Frank), Jayne Eastwood (Norma), and Michael Kelly (CJ) all move things along nicely.
First-time director Zack Snyder does a solid job moving things along, only occasionally indulging in crap like slow-mo images of shotgun shells flying through the air, and he handles some scenes (especially the communication with Andy, trapped at the gun store and only able to communicate by whiteboard) quite nicely. He also gives us a fine soundtrack, with Richard Cheese joining Cash and Caroll as highlights. And, of course, the special effects in this movie are some of the best zombie effects that have hit the screen in ages.
Dawn of the Dead is simply a great zombie flick, one of the two or three best modern (post-1969) zombie movies not directed by Romero himself. I do highly recommend the extended cut on the DVD, as the extra scenes do add to the characters, and the bonuses (including a short film chronicling the story of Andy in the gun store) really do enhance the movie.
*Surprised? It's not Lunch Hour of the Dead.
**He killed the wife of zombie Richard Kimble.
***Not least because it doesn't look like it's made out of cheap plastic.
****A little-known scientific fact. They also suck at golf.
*****Something Hank Hill should mention in his sales spiels.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-01 03:11 am (UTC)If I remember correctly -- I recall script coverage on Ain't It Cool, probably in 2002 -- an early draft of Gunn's script set the film in a mall in Everett, Washington, instead of near Milwaukee. Cool, I remember thinking, I've been to that mall! Plus there are more islands off of Everett than there are off of Milwaukee (none, I think). (Yes, I checked. Yes, I'm a geography geek.)
I want to shake the hand of whomever on the film thought of using "The Man Comes Around" (previously used pointlessly in the pointless film The Hunted) and that deranged lounge singer version of "Down With the Sickness" (the version that begins "Oh shit....") on the soundtrack.
I ultimately prefer this to the original Romero Dawn of the Dead -- which I found to be kind of uneven -- though for me neither beats Night of the Living Dead.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-01 03:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-01 04:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-01 05:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-01 05:10 am (UTC)It's a solid, fun, diverting movie that I've seen several horror "fans" tear into because it's not "OMG ROMERO".
While I enjoy the original (The first time I saw it I was lucky enough to get the un-cut version. FAR superior), this one is just as good for different reasons.
And the entire sub-plot with Andre, his girlfriend, and their baby? Fucking creepy.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-01 07:20 am (UTC)I always like pointing out that the opening of this film uses this enormously appropriate (though not evident unless you understand the song) Cash song, and Silent Hill used the enormously inappropriate (not evident unless you understand the song) Cash song "Ring of Fire." I think it sums up the disparity in quality between the two flicks nicely.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-01 07:22 am (UTC)Heh.
He really does, too. Saw him at a convention talking on the subject.
Me, I think both versions are great, for vastly different reasons.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-01 11:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-01 01:12 pm (UTC)There are some nice things in there, but having fast zombies isn't one of them. What next, Daleks with legs?
I'm still looking for the start of the last episode of the original V series, with the pre-titles 'what happened last time..' bit that ends with "The baby looked human, but then..." along with the titles and the good sparse synth / drum machine score. So, so awful, that music was the best bit.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 06:48 am (UTC)