Brutally intense and effective

Rating: 7/10 (22 June 2005)

A recreation of the classic from the 70ties may seem unnecessary, though it's always great fun watching them. With the ultimate zombie-gore movie DAWN OF THE DEAD as it's proceeder, the movie does all the same things that the original do in storytelling and plot ways. Ana comes home from her job as a nurse at the hospital to fall in sleep together with her husband, waking up the next day her husband is brutally attacked by the neighbor girl and kills him. He wakes up again and attacks her, and Ana understands quickly that she is one of the few that hasn't been bitten while driving threw the city filled violence, zombies and fires. Teaming up with a group of certainly not-dead people, they make a fort in a supermarket along with the peculiar security guards to starts a war against the undead...
The sort of problem with these kind of movies, is that they get so intense in the length. Wherever the camera turns, it's a zombie ducking up from behind the counter or whatever and by those means; the movie is a bit irritating and bothers you more than it frights or entertains. Filled with dozens of weird and sick characters, and off course some normal, the team of people does a lot of very un-realistic moves in their way to kill and get away, were almost everything they do is about suicidal. Kenneth, the rough cop played by Ving Rhames, is probably the most trust-able of them all, except Ana that is, he loads his shotgun several times to blow a zombie's head off - and with the movie filled with violence and gore, it's also close to disgusting time after time, but hey - it's a zombie movie.
DAWN OF THE DEAD gives us also several close-up shots to the undead, that's practically always filled with blood in their face and has some ugly scars right across the face or in the forehead or whatever, making them look monsters every one of them. The irony and sarcasm of the original has been pulled away to be replaced by more serious means and character development, though the black humor of them sitting on the roof tops shooting at celebrity-lookalikes among the undead is pretty sick anyway. It's not a happy movie, no movie to play on whatever kind of celebrations it may be, because it's so intense and effective in it's brutal reflections that it doesn't get pleasing watching it. Truly disgusting scenes flash upon you over and over, and the movie has got this kind of news-channel mood that puts it all very close to you. The opening with Johnny Cash tumbling a song in the background doesn't make the scene that serious, but with effective sound effects and pure gore this is a movie that's very serious and tense.
No movie for the whole family that's for sure, but for a group of teenagers bored and wanting to see something disgusting and bloody maybe? Though only that in fact is pretty scary.