Lacks the awe of the original, but makes up for it in fun.

Rating: Null/10 (24 March 2004)

This remake ditches the consumer satire of the 70's original, accepting that malls are too much a part of normal life to be worthy of serious scorn. Instead, Snyder goes for excitement, with zombies that are feral rather than piteous and sequences inspired as much by Aliens as the original Dawn. Characters are broadly but well drawn, and Synder is not afraid to let good people die and bad ones live. In particular, the character of "CJ" shows the sophistication of the film in comparison to the cut-and-dried moralising of much modern horror. Some of the gore is incredibly nasty, and the tone is refreshingly sincere, without any Scream-style "irony" to water down the suspense. This is not a horror film for couples on dates to cuddle to: this is grim, ferocious, mature stuff whose ideas unsettle as much as the crazed violence it depicts. Even the post-credit sequence throws a new, bleaker light on the previous carnage. The acting is good, but the sense of sadness and apocalypse of the original is traded in for excitement and extra thrills; an inevitable exchange, given the faster pace of the remake. The first ten minutes are a good indicator of the rest of the film: often disgusting, sometimes frightening, and good throughout.