Entertaining as Hell

Rating: 8/10 (17 March 2004)

Having recently seen the original (I bought it so I could get the Hellboy Sneak Preview DVD, plus I own Night of the Living Dead and Day of the Dead, I went into seeing the reimagining (the new Hollywood buzzword for remake) with an idea of why the first has such a huge reputation among horror fans.
The original is slowly paced with a small cast. The makeup is generally crappy, but some of the splatter effects are pretty good. The blood looks like reddish paint. The characters are pretty well drawn out and well-rounded. The shopper mentality allegory still holds up well. All in all, a pretty good movie, and I can see how it would have been somewhat revolutionary for it's time. Romero knows his zombies.
Fast forward almost 20 years and enter James Gunn, the writer of Scooby Doo the Movie and The Specials.
The Specials, if you haven't seen it, is an extremely funny superhero parody film, and in my opinion, better than the bigger budgeted Mystery Men, which came out at the same time. However you couldn't pay me enough to watch Scooby Doo. I won't even watch the cartoons.
Dawn of the Dead is definitely a post-28 Days Later zombie film. The camerawork is flashy, yet at times, grainy, the zombies move at a lightning pace, chasing and often outrunning their victims. Even aside from being a remake, the ideas are culled from every other influential zombie flick of the past twenty years, with subtle nods to the Evil Dead series, Dead Alive, 28 Days Later, etc.
Despite the inherent flaws, the movie accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do. It's a scary movie. Everyone in the audience jumped exactly when we were supposed to. We were grossed out when we needed to be, and we laughed when it was deliberately funny. Overall, it's just a highly entertaining movie.
The basic plot follows Ana (Sarah Polley from Go) as she wakes up one morning to find her neighbor's daughter in her hallway. Ana's husband goes to the girl, only to get his throat ripped out, kicking off the action for
the rest of the film. Ana flees, horrified, refusing to be approached by anyone, living or dead. Shortly thereafter, she runs into Kenneth (Ving Rhames of Pulp Fiction), a cop heading toward an alleged safe area. Almost as soon as they set off together, they meet three survivors who have decided to seek refuge in the local mall. Of course, at the mall, they meet a handful of other survivors, and begin to formulate a plan of escape.
There are quite a few scenes of solid character building, making the major characters into real individuals, however the supporting cast are generally just caricatures. But overall, there are just simply a lot of "cool" bits that, sure, they may be just filler, but it's interesting and exciting filler.
Some of the cast of the original "Dawn" make cameos. Ken Foree (Peter from the original) plays a televangelist, and gets to say the tagline in both films (When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth). Tom Savini (Special FX guru, and a biker from the original film) plays a sheriff who figures out a way to kill the zombies.
Matt Frewer also has about 2 minutes worth of screen time in the film. It made me sad, mostly to think that this is now his career. Poor Matt Frewer.
There is another character in the film named Steve, and the entire time he was onscreen, I could only think one thing: "That should have been Bruce Campbell." The actor playing Steve looks like a younger Bruce Campbell, the character has that sort of smarmy, cocky charm of a Bruce Campbell character, he just should have been Bruce Campbell.
The soundtrack surprised and impressed me. Being a big budget studio popcorn/action film, I expected a soundtrack full of the latest altnewxradio friendly fm rock bands. Instead, the music is mostly very offsetting to the film, giving it a little more of a creepy edge. The opening credits are run to the tune of Johnny Cash's "When the Man Comes Around". On the other hand, the end credits have Disturbed's "Sickness" playing, but to offset that, during the movie, the same song is played, but performed by Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine. I may seek out the soundtrack.
All in all, I loved this movie, it creeped me out. I love/hate zombies, and this did well by the zombie genre.
Stick around for the end credits. All of them.