Best Zombie Movie Ever!

Rating: Null/10 (26 November 2005)

First Watched: November 26, 2004; 1:30 p.m. ...that's 12 months, or 52 weeks, or 366 days, or 8,784 hours, or 527,040 minutes, or 31,622,400 seconds since I first saw this little zombie flick, and to this day remains my favorite horror film ever.
After missing it in the theater's(which I GREATLY regret), I rented this on DirecTv PPV, and after being glued to the screen for 101 minutes, I turned to my two brothers and said word for word, "That was the single best movie we've ever rented on PPV.", and it was. It was at the top of my X-Mas list, and sure enough I got it, but it just wasn't good enough, then came the director's cut which I of course own and consider my most important DVD. I just finished watching it today as it is the one year anniversary of the first time I saw it, and if I had to guess, I'd say it was probably the 20-25th time I've seen it, and I'm just getting' started. If you haven't guessed by now, I am completely and totally in love with this movie... but enough about me, let's talk a bit about the movie.
***Warning: Possible Spoiler's Ahead!!!***
-First and foremost, the cast and characters are dead-on perfect. I could go through and name every character and actor, but I'd just be saying how perfect they all are for their roles, they are all extremely convincing as people in a very hard situation. Even Mekhi Pheifer give's a believable performance, though he could have made shooting a gun look a little more believable... CJ is my favorite movie character of any movie I've seen(Michael Kelly rules!). His character while not the most featured in the film has the best development and the best demise in the film, which if you've seen the movie, you know how damn cool it is, even though it was sad to see him die... Ving Rhames is awesome as usual, but as I said before, EVERY actor was excellent in their roles.
-The look of the movie is great, very dark, eerie, and creepy. The cinematography is superb, it just looks so real you feel you are in the movie itself; the color and lighting in the mall really gives off a sickly feeling of dread and entrapment, which is exactly as it should be.
-The director of this movie, Zack Snyder, is a god to me. Every time I watch Dawn of the Dead, I feel he made it especially for me. As I said before, he and his Director of Photography, Matthew F. Leonetti made this movie look and feel so real, combine that with Niven Howie's excellent editing you get a film that is as visually appealing as ANYTHING I have ever seen put to film. The way this movie looks just cannot be beat, it is how every horror movie SHOULD look in my opinion, because it set's a mood that is just so special for a horror movie. I especially love his opening, just great how he has everything go from a "perfect world", to complete chaos... possibly the best opening to a horror movie I've ever seen.
-The music, is, without a doubt some of the best horror movie music I've ever heard, I'll leave it at that, cause I'm really just speechless on it, it's that good. As far as non-original music goes, Zack Snyder is a genius, using Johnny Cash's "The Man Comes Around" in the opening credits just works so perfectly, combined with the awesome images for the credit's sequence, I could just watch it over and over and over(and I have). The soundtrack simply rules!
-Of course, I gotta mention the zombies. "WOW", is all I can say, if you don't like this for any other reason, nobody can deny that this film has the best zombie effects since... ever. Every one is just a beauty for horror fan's. As far as running zombie's go, I'll just say that I loved it, I found them to be more threatening, and a hell of a lot more scary, but, you'll either love it or you'll hate it. If you're a die hard fan of Romero, you may not like it, if you're ready for a new generation of horror/zombie movies, like me, you'll love it.
-Finally, if you like violence, blood, gore, action, this IS the movie for you, there is so much blood and zombie head-shot's in this movie, you'd think you'd get sick of it, but trust me, you wont.
***End of Spoilers!***
Well, that's about all I'm really gonna say, you really have to watch this movie to decide for yourself how poetic it really is, and that it's not just a mindless gore-fest, it is a gore-fest, but it has a mind, and a heart...
I want you to go out and get this movie, get the director's cut, if you're a horror fan, you're gonna love this, you have to, it's what we've been waiting for, a brutal, gory, bloody, funny, fast, and overall fun movie, that is most importantly of all NOT a B-Movie. Personally, I think this movie deserves a spot on the IMDb's Top 250. They say you can't have everything, but for me, this movie has just that, EVERYTHING I wanted to see.
I would just like to thank and congratulate EVERYONE involved. I would especially like to thank and congratulate Zack Snyder, what a great debut feature... you are truly my favorite director, and I will pay money to see anything you do. (please make Dawn of the Dead 2!!)
Lastly I want to say that if the young and upcoming filmmaker's of today(myself being one) take note(I will) on how this movie turned out, and help to make movies like this the future of horror movies, then the future look's bright, and very bloody. 10/10