Twenty years ago when I first saw the commercials for the Dawn of the Dead remake, I groaned. The original by George A. Romero isn’t perfect but its few flaws are easy to dismiss for how great it’s made. Set mostly at a shopping mall in the suburbs of Pennsylvania, it was social commentary on the political turmoil of the 1970s and the rise of consumerism. Even though it was a horror movie, there was something comical about the undead people lurching around the shopping mall. It was saying something about American consumers. We were all the mindless zombies walking around these shopping centers in the days before online shopping.
The original received rave reviews from top critics, inspired other filmmakers including Lucio Fulci who made his own movie titled Zombie. It made a lot of money but the zombie movies didn’t really take off as much as they did in the 1980s. So, until the early 2000s, when Danny Boyle and Alex Garland made a pseudo-zombie movie 28 Days Later of infected people in England, the genre was popular again. But Days wasn’t really about the living dead as the infected were still alive. And it was a rage virus.
In the spring of 2004, Dawn of the Dead hit theaters. And like its original, critics liked it and it made over $100 million worldwide off a budget of $26 million. The movie was directed by Zack Snyder, then only known as a music video director, and written by James Gunn, who had also wrote the Scooby-Doo movie. But he cut his teeth a decade early working for Lloyd Kaufman at Troma Films. There is a slight touch of Troma in this movie. But the movie benefits from the studio’s control over Snyder, even though I will give him credit for wanting to put Johnny Cash on the soundtrack.
Set in Milwaukee but filmed in Toronto during the summer of 2003, it features many Canadian actors such as Sarah Polley who plays Ana Clark, a 20-something nurse. Ana seems to be living a normal life when Vivian (Hannah Lochner), the tween neighbor comes in Ana’s house one morning and attacks her husband, Luis (Louis Ferreira), who dies but is later re-animated and tries to attack Ana. She manages to lock herself in the bathroom, grabbing the car keys, and squeezing out the window.
Outside, there is nothing but pandemonium as her neighbors are running around screaming, some attacking each other and cars are on fire. Emergency vehicles are going everywhere. And when a bus driver tries to carjack her, she takes off but runs over the road going down a hill where her car hits a tree. It’s a wonderful beginning. Even though there was a remake of Night of the Living Dead made in 1990, this one is self-contained even though there is a subtle reference to the 1990 remake during the opening when a car runs into a gas station and it explodes.
I had stepped out of the room for the credits only to hear Cash and came back in. It’s genius to have Cash singing “When the Man Comes Around” as news footage of chaos plays over the opening credits. Ana is met by Sgt. Kenneth Hall (Ving Rhames), a Milwaukee policeman, who she tags along with until they meet up with Michael Shaunessy (Jake Weber) and Andre (Mekhi Phifer) and his pregnant wife, Luda (Inna Korobkina).
They make their way to a shopping mall, Crossroads Mall, that is almost deserted, except for a few infected people and security guards C.J. (Michael Kelly), the supervisor, Bart (Michael Barry) and the young, gullible Terry (Kevin Zegers). After a tense time, a truck driver brings some more survivors to the mall because they see the signs that have been painted on the roof asking for help.
While Romero’s original kept the main survivors in the mall down to a handful, the expansions of more characters reduces the characters to more stereotypes. Ty Burrell plays Steve Markus, an annoying businessman, who seems to constantly be critical of everyone. And he eventually gets it on with Monica (Kim Poirer), a buxom blonde. But something gets lost in the inclusion of more characters. The friendship that Kenneth builds with Andy (Bruce Bohne), the owner of a gunshop across the street, is a nice touch. They both communicate by writing on dry erase boards and even play a game of chess.
There’s a wonderful scene featuring a small role by Matt Frewer as Frank, who slowly turns into the undead, as Kenneth waits to kill him. And as he has to say goodbye to his young daughter, Nicole (Lindy Booth), it adds the human emotion the movie needs. The same is for Andre and Luda as he tries to keep it known that she has been bit leading to the most disturbing birth in a horror movie since a huge maggot was pulled out of Geena Davis’ character during a nightmare sequence in 1986’s The Fly.
Snyder and Gunn make this Dawn more action-oriented. The undead run fast when they see people. But they don’t turn it in the video games that Zombieland and The Walking Dead turned in. (I’m going to commit blasphemy by saying I didn’t really care for Zombieland all that much.) The survivors in the mall have a limited supply of ammunition unlike in the 1978 version where there was a gun store available. The filmmakers could’ve gone more for the consumerism angle especially in 2004 but the way it’s structured, it works and never gets dull.
The theatrical version is about 100 minutes, which is around 20 minutes less than the original theatrical version. Having seen the unrated version, the theatrical works just fine. Polley, Webber, Phifer and Rhames give the movie the emotional edge it needs. And even though he’s antagonistic at first, C.J. comes around as an ally. I think C.J. is just cautious at first and he expresses himself the wrong way during an emergency crisis. There’s hints that he’ll calm down when he talks briefly with Michael about making help signs on the roof.
Also, the movie avoids from making Steve the main antagonist. Yes, he’s self-centered, but he isn’t resorted to being the heavy that is always in these types of movies. I’m almost certain that if a zombie apocalypse would happen, you’d find people like Steve and Monica. That was one thing TWD and other of these movies resorted to by having someone drunk on their own power, i.e. Negan.
Incidentally, the movie was released in America around the same time Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg released their own zombie movie, Shaun of the Dead, in the United Kingdom. It would later be released in America in the Fall of 2004. I think both movies work as companion movies as an ode to the Romero movies. Unfortunately it spawned the zombie resurrection of the 2000s. Rhames would later appear in an unconnected remake of Day of the Dead in 2008 which wasn’t nearly as good as Dawn or Shaun.
Then, there was the made-for-TV Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis and Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave followed by Romero making Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead before his death. Add to that the popularity of Resident Evil movies and TWD and it seem the genre was saturated. Even Robert Rodriguez released his own Planet Terror.
Snyder would later go on to make more comic-book adaptation and go nuts with slow-motion. Gunn, himself, would also work on comic-book adaptation following his own horror movie Slither. Oddly, most of the cast also became more famous following this movie. Polley is now an Oscar-winning filmmaker. Burrell has won two Emmys for his work on Modern Family as well as appearing in other TV shows and movies.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 