More of a new movie than a remake

Rating: Null/10 (5 April 2004)

I'm a great fan of the Romero films, and own all 3 on DVD. I'm also waiting excitedly to buy the latest DOTD on DVD after having seen it at the cinema.
The first film is utterly different to the 'remake'. So different that it will be like owning two complimentary zombie films in my DVD collection, and it definitely won't be (and hasn't been) a case of being unable to view the old film after watching the second.
DOTD 2004 is an outstanding action film, with some good horror elements, and suspense, where as DOTD 1978 is more subtle and atmospheric, and more concerned with clever social satire, than with out-and-out gungho action. The latest film is a white knuckle ride like no other, but the earlier film stays in your mind long after the movie has ended, with many disturbing issues left for the viewer to mull over.
I don't think that DOTD 2004 is quite as successful as the first film in its portrayal of dead people coming back AS dead ghouls. I was reminded of films like 'The Exorcist' and '28 Days Later' when ever a DOTD 2004 zombie was leaping about maniacally on the screen....almost as if they were possessed by raging demons or in the throes of a viral contagion/ madness. Romero's zombies looked as if they really were dead bodies reanimated, with the lack of mobility you'd expect from a corpse that has suffered brain death and physical decay/ trauma. DOTD 2004 zombies seemed too 'fit' and capable of Olympian feats of agility and speed that were probably beyond the living person they'd replaced. Although it made for visceral hair-raising chase scenes it also added a level of implausibility to an already implausible premise.
It also shows how Romero's version didn't have to 'hide' behind the easier plot device of how the world was taken over by what amount to (in DOTD 2004) unstoppable foes with immense strength and savagery. In the remake, mankind really has no chance to win/ survive. The zombies are as strong/ fast as them, they outnumber them...they never sleep, have no moral compunctions to inhibit their actions. It's almost a no-brainer that everyone is going to die. In Romero's film you have slow zombies that only really succeed in vast numbers, but which can be contained if the living coordinate their attacks and help each other survive...Which is where the main difference in the films arises.
Romero points the finger at how ridiculous our conflicting morals are. We're avid shallow materialistic shoppers, yet cannot bring ourselves to kill/ dispose of potentially lethal corpses even when our very survival is at stake. The bikers are thoughtless anarchists who could have shared the mall with the holed-up survivors, but instead waste a golden opportunity, and even more precious lives, due to greed. But Snyder basically says 'there's this virus, so now there's all these superfast zombies, and hey, you're all going to die.'
But it's scary. No doubt about it. Romero gives you scares laced with the frustration that the apocalypse could have been avoided if only we'd united and nipped it in the bud at its outset. Snyder gives us the horrid realisation that his vision of the virus would absolutely catch us unprepared and leave the living with virtually no hope, almost over night.
The film's opening gets the enormity of the cataclysm across better than any zombie film before it. The first 9 minutes and the following credits are an absolute miracle of cinema, and deliver what DOTD 1978 probably didn't have the budget to visualise, and what 28 Days Later shied (disappointingly imho) away from in some respects...a cataclysm that horrifyingly strips the veneer away from civilized society in a shockingly short space of time.
The two films can (and should) co-exist, and I for one loved them both, but for very different reasons per film.
8/10