Not all that bad......

Rating: Null/10 (11 June 2004)

I'm writing this review after just having come from seeing "Dawn" at the cinemas. Originally when I heard about this remake of the 1978 George A Romero film (which I haven't seen yet but am very eager to) I wasn't all that keen as many of today's horror flicks, especially a lot of the remakes, often come up lacking. However, after I read a pretty good review of this film in a newspaper, and given my fondness for zombie flicks, I ended up getting pretty excited about it and decided to check it out. While this movie wasn't up to the standard of another recent zombie flick, the excellent "28 Days Later", it certainly had some redeeming features, that set it a cut above the rest of most modern horror flicks. First of all, there was no boring opening sequence that slowly eases the audience into a feeling of dread, as soon as the flick began, there was an immediate feeling that it could be any minute that a zombie would jump out and all hell would break loose. Also, the zombies rated fairly highly with me. Even though the style of extremely rapid and ferocious zombies (rather than slow and dull, which was the case in the older zombie flicks) was most probably borrowed from 28 DAYS, the filmmakers were very wise to use fast zombies, because, quite simply, fast zombies are much scarier than slow zombies, and, to their credit, the filmmakers do succeed in making scary zombies. **SPOILER AHEAD!!**...I thought the sequence after Ana escapes from her house, where her husband, who has become infected, tries to attack her, were particularly good. I love the way there is utter chaos outside, while Ana tries to escape in her car. Cars crashing into each other, people turning against each other, zombies chasing people left right and centre make the whole thing less choreographed and more realistic, like a sudden warzone in a suburban area.**SPOILER END!!** Regarding the human characters, most were likable enough if a little dull. The characters were pretty typically, and there wasn't much in the way of character development. From about half way through the movie onwards, the movie was a bit more boring but still had some very enjoyable moments. Overall, the movies action scenes and the LOOK of the action and the zombies was very good, the characters were average and the scares were pretty decent.