Dawn of the Dead (2004)

25th Oct 04





Plot
Ana, a nurse living in Suburban Wisconsin, is having one of those days. When she finally gets away from the hospital after a grueling 12 hour shift which inevitably overruns - something to do with a bizarre spate of bite victims in emergency - she just wants to rush home into the arms of her loving husband, Louis. No TV, no radio and no interruptions. Just a nice hot shower with her man and an early night. Lovely.

The next morning the couple is rudely awakened by the strange sight of the little girl from next door standing in their bedroom doorway with some kind of hideous facial injury. Louis reacts first and rushes to her aid, but the young girl repays the man's kindness by taking a huge bite out of his neck. He pushes her off into the hallway and Ana leaps up to slam the door closed, but it's too late. Despite her best efforts, Ana can do nothing but watch poor Louis die in a swelling pool of his own blood. Within seconds of his death, though, Ana's husband is back on his feet and is frantically chasing her around the room, consumed by an overwhelming crazy undead blood lust. Confused and terrified, poor Ana has to fight back her tears and think on her feet just to make it out of her house in one piece, through the tiny bathroom window no less.

It's only when she gets outside that she actually realizes the true extent of the carnage. Her world, it seems, has literally gone to hell overnight. It really is quite something to witness; a scene of pure confusion, fear, panic and death. Fires blaze uncontrollably as smoke billows from damaged buildings while sirens wail indiscriminately over the screams of the living as they run for their lives, pursued at break-neck pace by the recently deceased. The humming sound of police helicopters swarming overhead is ominous, as is the shell-shocked neighbour across the street pointing the handgun at Ana while warning her to back off. Her most immediate threat however is her blood soaked husband, who's just made it to the front door, but thankfully quick thinking Ana had the foresight to grab the car keys from her bedside table on the way out. She's in the family saloon and burning down the road in no time, although not before Louis manages to put his fist through her windscreen in one last ditch attempt to get at her, before rolling off the bonnet and chasing after some other poor soul.

Things don't get much better for Ana though, as it soon becomes clear that the zombie onslaught isn't just confined to her local area. All the roads around her have become scenes of apocalyptic mayhem, so much so that before long dodging burnt out cars, speeding emergency services vehicles and screaming victims becomes too much for Ana and she's forced off the road and into a tree; the crash knocking her unconscious.

When she awakens, she's looking down the barrel of a shotgun; Ving Rhames's shotgun actually. Realizing she's not one of them, he points the gun away and they get moving together, soon bumping into a group of survivors fleeing from the other direction. Their numbers have just been decimated that way and so, with their options running out, they've decided to double back and try to seek refuge inside the local mall.

It's as good a plan as any.

Review
When I first heard sometime last year that the powers that be had decided to make a big budget remake of Romero's classic, my heart skipped a beat although not out of excitement. Like most fans of the seminal 70s zombie masterpiece, I was totally horrified. What's going on? How dare they? How much? Twenty-something million invested in a project that's obviously going to turn out shit (especially if the recent House of the Dead was anything to go by) and yet Romero is struggling to find finance for his own fourth installment? Is this a joke? How can this be? Does Hollywood have no shame? Like a million other Romero fan-boys worldwide, I screamed injustice.

But then reports started to trickle down from the Internet. Not only did these reports claim the remake wasn't going to be quite as God awful as we all expected, they actually suggested it might be quite good. Sarah Polley was on board (who was excellent in Go) as was the seriously reliable Ving Rhames, so things were looking up already. The teaser trailer too was suitably enticing, as was the full trailer a couple of months later, but at the end of the day no matter what the buzz was, I think we all still had our doubts.

Then Universal made the unprecedented decision to option the first 8 minutes or so to cable and satellite channels worldwide. Mark Kermode introduced the UK version on Sky Movies as part of a documentary on the recent zombie revival and he looked pleased as punch about it. He had good reason too, as the opening 8 minutes of Dawn of the Dead, which I've all but narrated to you in the 'plot' section of this article, are nothing short of breathtaking. The panic, the carnage, the screaming, the agony, it's all there in spades and so with my skeptical instincts buried, I bee-lined it down to my local multiplex.

Even as early as the opening reel, it was clear what the major difference was going to be between the Dawn remake and the original, but the repercussions of this fundamental alteration are not immediately obvious. I am, of course, talking about the zombies. Gone are the days when zombies merely shuffled along with a hungry but vacant expression. Now they run at you kicking and screaming, or rather biting and clawing, much like they did in 28 Days later. In fact, this movie owes as much to that movie as it does to the original Dawn, not least because of the way the zombies behave, but also because of the way they are filmed. The Dawn remake switches from slow, deliberate shots to fast, erratic camerawork whenever these crazed living dead enter the narrative. It's a style that has been done before, but perhaps never as effectively as it's been done here.

The reasoning is simple; in the Romero trilogy the zombie threat was not as such an apocalypse, more a national crisis. One zombie, or even a handful, did not amount to immeasurable odds since these guys moved so slowly you could, if pushed, take out a few with a trusty crowbar. Dwayne showed us as much in the original Night of the Living Dead. However, if the zombies run at you possessed of a similar speed and strength to you you're fucked, since while you're scared shitless for your own life, their inhibitions are gone and they just want to feed. Encounter one and you're going to struggle just to get away in one piece, as Ana showed at the start of the movie. Encounter a handful or more and it's a whole different ball game. What makes matters worse is that in 28 Days Later the zombies weren't actually zombies but infected people who, as such, could be gunned down like the rest of us. In the Dawn remake they only drop if you shoot 'em in the head, which is tricky if they're all running at you at 100mph.

What this essentially does is make the entire zombie threat all the more so immediate and it shows in the film. Whereas the original Dawn predicted the end through a slow outnumbering, the remake simply has the planet go to hell overnight. While the original had a constant news feed to make the situation seem believable (hell - it even started in a TV studio), the remake plays on how abruptly the news feed goes from chaotic to off the air in a matter of days. The sense of 'it's all over' is apparent from the word go, and nobody has any time to prepare.

Does it work though? Is the overnight implosion of organised society as scary as the gradual decline we witnessed three decades ago? Well, in this age of MTV, satellite news feeds and constant communication via cellular technology, would you be worried by anything less?

The movie is helped along by the outstanding performances of a few lead players. Ving Rhames does what he does best as Kenneth, the 'hard man of few words' cop and Jack Weber is outstanding as the level-headed everyman nice guy who tries his utmost to keep an air of sanity in a largely insane situation. But it's indie queen Sarah Polley that really carries the show as the sensitive but determined Ana, who is probably the most believable female lead character in an action horror since Alien's Ellen Ripley. I can only hope that the Dawn remake propels Polley towards the upper echelons of Hollywood's finest and brings her the recognition that she seriously deserves.

Apart from the three I've mentioned, there's not a great deal that can be said about the rest of the cast. Nobody gives a bad performance, far from it, but there seems to be far too many peripheral characters vying for screen time for anyone else to make a memorable impact. Kelly does well as C.J. the trigger happy security guard and Burrell is amusing as the overly cynical Steve, but that's about it. Hell, one old guy disappears completely for most of the film only to appear right at the end just in time to seriously mishandle a chainsaw, with sickeningly fatal consequences.

Which brings me on to the gore. When the little girl rips into Louis's neck at the beginning with a proper gory flesh-ripping, blood everywhere zombie attack, I knew we were onto a winner. The gore is perhaps not at the same level as the Italian splatfests from the tail end of the 70s I grant you, but what we do get is nicely graphic and reassuringly unflinching. The movie does feel like cuts have been made (you experienced gorehounds out there will know what I mean) but it's still remarkable what has got past the censors. Let's just say that 20 years ago the UK theatrical release of this baby would have been a strong contender for the DPP's infamous video nasties list. Flesh ripping, eye gouging, head explosions, chainsaw dismemberments, you name it you got it, although in my opinion the chainsaw 'accident' I mentioned earlier is worth the price of admission alone. The only thing the Dawn remake lacks is shots of zombies properly chowing down on human flesh, but a friend had to actually point that out to me after the fact, which just goes to show how little I missed them at the time.

Overall, Dawn of the Dead 2004 is fast, frightening and thoroughly entertaining. The principal cast do a good job at holding things together, even if there are too many secondary characters fighting for the cameras attention. When they happen, the zombie attacks are relentless, are shot well and the zombies are probably the best looking undead since Savini's Night of the Living Dead remake of '90. At least I think they are since the buggers never stand still long enough for you to get a good look at them, except of course when Ken and Andy play the celebrity zombie shoot game for much needed comic relief. I shalln't spoil it for you by going into too much detail there, suffice to say that sequence still makes me chuckle to this very day. The film is shot to make the world look like a 21st century urban wasteland (which means it must have been filmed in Canada) and the soundtrack is more action than horror, but it seems to work somehow. The inclusion of various versions of 'Down with the Sickness' only add to the madness and are sure to raise a smile or two as it certainly did with me. The mall itself seems to look the part and even has the odd store named after cast members from the original version of Dawn, although I was surprised that the mall location wasn't utilized more in the story this time around. Gone is the social commentary of the original in favour of frantic zombie mayhem, but again for some reason it still works, so let's be thankful for small mercies.

So, swallow your pride, bottle your apprehensions and see this flick as soon as possible. Be warned though, don't take your lady friends to see this flick unless you're absolutely sure she can handle it. My girl spent most of the movie hiding under her jacket or muttering 'You bastard...' at me under her breath.

Now if that's not a horror seal-of-approval, I don't know what is, which is why Dawn of the Dead gets the big white-hot four and a half stars.

Versions
There are a number of versions of this DVD available, although the most available are the R1, R2 and R3 theatrical and directors cuts. As far as we can find out, there is no difference between the R1, R2 and R3 directors cuts, even though the R1 version is the only labelled 'unrated'.

Note also that the directors cut discs contain 3 short documentaries not featured on the theatrical cut disc, but similarly the theatrical cut includes one short the directors disc doesn't have.

The breakdown is as follows.

Director's Cut

Commentaries:
Audio commentary by director Zack Snyder and Producer Eric Newman

Extras:
"Intro By Director Zack Snyder" (1m15s)
"The Lost Tape: Andy's Terrifying Last Days Revealed" (16m24s)
"Special Bulletin: We Interrupt This Program!" (21m04s)
"Undead Scenes" (11 deleted scenes w/ optional commentary by director Zack Snyder) (11m41s)
"Raising the Dead" featurette (7m55s)
"Attack of the Living Dead" (7m24s)
"Splitting Headaches: Anatomy of Exploding Heads" featurette (5m38s)

Subtitles:
English

Picture format:
2.35:1 Anamorphic PAL

Soundtrack(s):
English Dolby Digital 5.1
English Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround

Theatrical Cut

Commentaries:
Audio commentary by director Zack Snyder and Producer Eric Newman

Extras:
"The Lost Tape: Andy's Terrifying Last Days Revealed" (16m24s)
"Special Bulletin: We Interrupt This Program!" (21m04s)
"Undead Scenes" (11 deleted scenes w/ optional commentary by director Zack Snyder) (11m41s)
"Surviving The Dawn" featurette

Subtitles:
English

Picture format:
2.35:1 Anamorphic PAL

Soundtrack(s):
English Dolby Digital 5.1
English Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround

Posted by
Jim



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