Much better than I expected it to be

Rating: 10/10 (20 March 2004)

First of all I am not even going to compare this re-make to the original because it is unfair to do that. if people wanted it to be like the original they would rent the original from 1978.
On its own Dawn Of The Dead stands out for the same reasons the original stood out. You see horror and gore unlike anything you've seen before. The wounds are realistic. You see brains fly from the zombies' heads. This movie was obvously intended not to hold any realism back. When someone in it, zombie or a human, are shot you see blood sputter and smear very realistically.
Besides the gore realism this movie succeeds at scaring me with genuine "pop out of your seat" scares. You know how some horror movies just scare you with some blood murder scene and leave you scared from disgust rather than from surprise. Dawn of The Dead director skillfully overcomes this and scares you when you least expect it. There are some scenes where everyone is happy and calm and you relax your nerves than a zombie jumps out and your pants suddenly get in danger of being pooped.
I could truly bond with some of the characters and feel their pain and fear. You see expressions on their faces change as they see people around them die and realize that their families are dead. I do think, however, that there wasnt much social commentary in this film, that is its just action action action. There is no pauses or change of pace for viewers or characters to behave differently and reflect somehow on what has happened and possibly see some conections with real world.
Cinematography in this one is not bad. I am not an expert on it, but I think in some scenes the color was too intense to portray feeling, everything looked cartoonishly bright. Then, especially in zombie attack and struggle, the camera was jerking around as if its some journalist filming in a riot. The camera was moved around so much it was hard to follow whats happening. Then the frame rate was reduced as well, probably to add more realism and to cover up the special effects, but was definately not hurting my viewing experience.
I give this movie 9 out of 10