Happy Fun Zombie Movie (complete with HAPPY FUN SPOILERS)

Rating: 8/10 (20 March 2004)

I held off seeing this movie until several hours after it opened. That's an accomplishment for me, because I LOVE zombie movies. Given a choice, I'd rather watch flesh-eating walking dead menace the populace than just about anything else.
And this loose remake of the 1978 classic is, indeed, a typical zombie movie... which shouldn't be too surprising, since Romero's "Living Dead" films set the standard for zombie horror for two generations now.
But this is not George Romero. Zack Snyder does a good job retooling and directing this fine piece of gore cinema, but anyone expecting to see a Romero movie isn't going to be happy. Snyder hasn't set out to duplicate the original; he grabs lots of of elements from it, but he twists them around to suit the purposes of an audience that's far more jaded than those who saw Romero's sequel.
The zombies in Snyder's vision of the apocalypse as experience from the inside of a shopping mall aren't slow, lumbering creatures. They move just as fast as the living, in fact... and they don't get tired. They're quick and relentless, and there's no sense of the kind of vulnerability that was inherent in Romero's stiff, ready-to-fall-down anyhow undead. These things can take you by surprise and hit you before you know what's happening.
Unlike the 1978 film, wherein the characters were determined to hole up in the mall for as long as possible, the consensus among most of those in the new version is that they don't want to die in a place filled with muzak and timed lighting. In fact, the only character who wants to stay put also turns out to be the most self-centered of the bunch, and perhaps that's Snyder's message in this film (if there is one); it's better to die than be a slave to the artificial consumer world. In Romero's movie, the dead were drawn to the mall out of habituation; in Snyder's, it's the living that go there for no particularly good reason and soon realize that they can't stay. The dead only come when they figure out that there are living people already there.
There are some excellent scenes and effects in this film. Paramount is a scene of an exploding propane tank among a huge crowd of zombies. The scene is shot from above and is at once both immaculately beautiful and horrible. We're also treated to the birth of an undead baby in this one, a bit of zombie possibility that has been utterly ignored by film makers outside of the much underrated "Dead Alive" (aka "Braindead").
This is NOT the most gory zombie film ever - not by a long shot. It may have been before it was cut to get an R rating, but there have definitely been more blood-soaked zombie flicks. On the other hand, this movie does manage to be suspenseful at times, especially during the initial set-up. The make-up effects are excellent, and there are certainly scenes in this one where even a jaded flesh-muncher watcher will find his/herself sliding down on their seat and bracing for impact. That's not to say it takes a lot of cheap shots; it doesn't engage in a lot of hand-on-the-shoulder kind of behavior. Nor is there much subtlety here. You know what the zombies want.
This is not Academy Award material. The acting is good but not great. Zombie fans will enjoy this; non-zombie fans (and I dare say most movie critics) will discard it out of hand. No big surprise there. "Dawn of the Dead, the Remake" delivers what it promises, and what it promises is a good time for people who think that the walking dead make for a good time.
The soundtrack is... unusual. There is, of course, the Muzak in the mall, and hearing the bland, banal tones of "Don't Worry, Be Happy" and "You Light Up My Life" playing over the end of the world is a nice touch. There's also a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek, lounge lizard version of "Get Down With the Sickness" that's bound to crack a few smiles in the audience. As if to highlight the films post-punk, anti-consumer culture mentality, it closes with Jim Carroll's "People Who Died," one of my personal 1980's punk anthems.
A quick hint to fellow zombie lovers: DO NOT LEAVE THE THEATER WHEN THE CREDITS START ROLLING. This movie has a false ending; you don't see the real ending unless you sit through the credits. Plus, if you leave too soon, you'll miss lots of gratuitous close-up zombie shots!
This is a Happy Fun Zombie Movie for Happy Fun Zombie People. If you want to see things coming back from the dead but aren't the kind of person who wants to sit through "The Passion of the Christ" (to which this film makes a timely and happily-received counterpoint for some of us!), this is THE flick for you!