Artistic, and excellent, but not so scary

Rating: 8/10 (24 April 2004)

Well first you have to go in understanding Dawn is part of the 'splatter' subgenre under horror. Being grotesque is by far a higher priority than scaring you, which is fine. The film has few true scares in it and the atmosphere is never really so much frightening as hopeless.
As a zombie movie I personally found it excellent. The 'thing' about zombies as movie villains is that they're unstoppable as a force and there's no safety in numbers, and in the end, they always win. That's very well conveyed in Dawn, which plays at times more like a documentary than a horror/suspense movie.
(as an aside, I also enjoy the fact that the danger to the entire group never really comes from the stupidity of one person, though as always bad decisions lead to some consequences)
The passage of time as hopelessness accumulates is exceptional, the use of music is incredible, and the 'feel' and pacing are rather unique. All in all as far as a quality movie goes I think it's really incredible but it never escapes its genre. If you don't see yourself enjoying even an excellent, high quality splatter movie, you can give this one a pass.