Dawn of the Dead...Not a true remake, but a great film...

Rating: Null/10 (2 April 2004)

Romero's Dawn of the Dead is a more brooding film that plays on the mind long after you've seen it. The atmosphere is bleaker, the actors' performances more rounded, the story layered with irony and shrewd observations on the human condition. The zombies win through sheer numbers, being slow lumbering shells of their former selves, and not raging dead athletes with frightening levels of agility, like their 2004 counterparts. They also win because mankind is too stupid to unite, too morally contradictory (example: it's wrong to kill the recently deceased to prevent the spread of the epidemic, yet it's right to be shallow and materialistic...hence shopping mall setting) to survive in a world where all the rules of wrong and right have become less complex as civilization crumbles. The incredibly savage and nimble 2004 zombies are going to win anyway, even in a one-on-one situation it seems. The biology of the zombies in the first film is more believable, and so the scariness of the zombies stays with you for longer, where as the new film's zombies scare you in the short term...like a good white knuckle ride. Romero's are more believable as actual dead things. The lack of coordination through rigor mortis and brain death of the 1978 film suggests 'zombie'. The 2004 film suggests 'demonic possession' or perhaps humans undergoing a permanent living viral madness, a la '28 Days Later.'
I feel that this was necessary though, because the 'shambling zombie' is now a stereotype, and the kind of subtle horror of Romero's generation is (perhaps unfortunately) out of vogue. That's not to say that DOTD 2004 doesn't scare. It's a visceral roller coaster ride that equals 28 Days Later. I'm not sure whether the concept of 'zombies' is communicated as clearly with the screaming athletic rabble of this version though...But the concept of insurmountable odds and impending death most certainly is.
Where DOTD 2004 improves over just about EVERY zombie film ever made, is in its effectiveness of communicating the enormity of the cataclysm...the absolute horror of the rapid decay of human civilization, and the fragility of society. The first 9 minutes, plus the ensuing credits gets the scale of the disaster across perfectly, in a way that DOTD 1978 hinted at, and 28 Days Later SEEMED to be about to do with its wonderfully edited trailers, yet ultimately failed to do.
The first Dawn of the Dead hints at the global apocalypse looming, with the occasional TV/ radio bulletin, shots of the rednecks gunning down zombies out in the countryside. DOTD 2004 actually delivers the goods with the stunning set pieces in the Polley's suburban estate, and then the city, and then builds on that success with a pretty standard, yet exquistely well paced gore-a-thon which takes the zombie film into a more contemporary direction.
A great film, but not (apart from the zombies/ people in a mall similarities) really a bonafide remake of Romero's epic. I eagerly await the DVD release. 8/10