Fresh, yet not fresh

Rating: 7/10 (26 May 2004)

First of all, I am a HUGE horror fan and I've been dying to see the new Dawn of the Dead. I hate to admit this, but I finally just saw it this weekend (5/22!!) You at least have to give me props for checking it out on the big screen, even if it was at the cheap-o movie theater. It was $3.75 well spent! Even though the movie was kind of scratchy because i guess it's made it's rounds, I was still pretty much into it.
I'm a big fan of the original DOTD. I've owned it on video since high school and I've watched it a lot! So, I wanted to go into watching this remake with a clean slate. Even though I liked this remake, it did seem a lot like 28 Days Later, which I thought was better, but they are both still nothing crazily new or radical on the zombie genre [actually, I think 28 Days Later copied from the original DOTD].
I don't think I'm giving too much away here (plus, if you haven't seen it yet and you're a horror fan, you're worse than me!!), but this is a warning that I might mention a couple of the killings. Anyway, the girl in the beginning who starts out as a nurse is very cute, in a girl next door kind of way. I know I recognize her from something else, but I think she is older and hotter now. Although, her husband in the beginning looks like he could be her dad. Showering with her. Creepy. I wonder what the director Zach's deal is? His directing was really cool, though.
I like the opening when the nurse has to escape her own house and then drives through all hell breaking lose in their suburb and the camera keeps backing up further away and you see a car crash into the gas station and it blows up.
Once they get trapped in the mall, I think the acting is really good, but I liked all mall stuff in the original DOTD better. But the acting and directing do lift the movie. I liked getting to know the characters and the tension of whose a zombie or not [that fat lady was so totally a zombie  how could they not figure that one out faster?] And, I want to pay mad props to Mhiki Pfieffer for getting his name in a Enimen song and delivering a zombie baby all in the span of one year!
I Won't say what happens at the end [the very end] but I liked it. It was cool and wasn't like your typical Hollywood ending per se. So, in a nutshell... Too much like 28 Days Later, and nothing earth shatteringly new or fresh, but still a pretty cool movie, with good acting and directing. I say, go see it!!