Gnarly!

Rating: Null/10 (13 April 2004)

George A Romero's classic Dawn of the Dead is given 21st Century treatment in this cracking gore-fest from first time director Zack Snyder.
Hordes of zombies go on the rampage throughout Middle America, and a group of humans manage to hole themselves up in an abandoned shopping mall to avoid becoming zombie-fodder.
I was a bit sceptical about going to see this as zombie-movies aren't my cup of tea at all. However, see it I did (without a previous viewing of the original) and thoroughly enjoyed it. What makes my opinion of the remake stronger is the fact that the original was on TV a few days later!

Within the first ten minutes you're given a general idea of what's going on, as the carnage and chaos spreads like wildfire around the city. Pretty soon your reward for paying your £5 or whatever is the gore: lots of it! Oh yeah, and the action.
The remake has far more characters in it than the original (something like fifteen, compared to four). As is usual in Hollywood horror movies, the number of characters in them means that predictably they will fall prey to the hordes of nasties running around the mall. Who they will be isn't quite as predictable.
The remake is fast-paced and never boring, while the original dragged on and doesn't really go anywhere for a long time. Also, the remake features zombies more along the lines of those in 28 Days Later, which aren't the shuffling, moaning, brain-chomping beasts they once were: they're faster, stronger and slightly more scary! Plus, these new `Mk2' zombies (with new go-faster stripes!) are much more threatening and they make the film more suspenseful. I know there is a reason for Romero's creatures to be slow and shuffling, but hoorah for the steroid-enhanced undead!
While the original went on into showing the characters holing themselves up in the mall for the foreseeable future, the remake has them wanting to bust out and find civilization again. OK, so some of the acting's not great, there are a ton of clichés in there and the music is pretty standard fare for a horror movie (although I do love the Richard Cheese version of Disturbed's `Down With The Sickness', the original version of which chimes in at the end. At least you can now hear what they're singing!).
The movie is definitely not for the faint-hearted, as the gore comes thick and fast with brains a-splattering all over the place! And an over-enthusiastic human with a chainsaw makes for some unintended hilarity as the humans escape the zombie hordes (believe me, it IS funny! Practically the whole cinema was laughing!).
Four outta five stars - and definitely worth viewing is the spoof horror "Shaun of the Dead"!