ruining a classic

Rating: Null/10 (18 April 2004)

the first time i ever got to see the original Dawn of the Dead i was 7 years old, and i absolutely loved it. the entire Dead trilogy have been some of my favourite horror films ever since. so as the remake was released not long before my 18th birthday i decided what the hell i'll go see it. i already knew that the director was probably going to make a hash of it but i was open minded and thought "well, maybe it won't be so bad" boy was i wrong. i know that ever since us Brit's produced 28 Days Later plenty of people (Brit's as well as Americans- i'm not going to say its only Americans) have said "ooo cool zombie film" if anyone paid attention 28 Days Later was not a zombie film. the whole basis of that film was that scientists had developed a virus that induced incredible rage, it did NOT turn anyone into zombies! i can understand the mistake there but when someone produces a remake of possibly one of the first zombie films, a film that set every rule about zombies, and then screws with all of the rules, i find myself unforgiving. for one thing the originals never meant to make the zombies scary, our reaction was meant to be the scary thing. we couldn't do anything to save ourselves, by the time we understood what they were we had to battle with our own beliefs and societies restrictions, and by that time we were doomed and overrun. the real thing that would destroy us would be ourselves not the undead. also any zombie film fan will know that zombies have two certain characteristics that the new director seems to forget completely. for a start zombies are slow moving creatures due to rigor mortis and muscle deteriation... second zombies work on pure instinct and eat due to instinct, they need to sustenance and aren't well known as picky eaters if its alive, moving and has meat on it, generally they'll eat it.. that includes dogs!!! in fact in several earlier zombie films there were in fact zombie dogs... i remember one character in the remake describing them as zombies when they are clearly not, if anyone recalls the news reports in the original film "they are not cannibals... they feed only on living flesh" a cannibal by definition must feed on its own kind, zombies don't feed on zombies. for those modern horror fans, those who are too young to remember how many wonderfully written and filmed horror b-movies there were in the 80's and prior to that you really should start watching older horror films, because personally i haven't seen a horror film in a long time that has managed to scare me and the last one that did was filmed over a decade ago. the problem with modern horror directors is that they have no concept of subtlety, you can't go for the scares every single second. which is another failing with the new film. making things jump out of nowhere, making characters so irritating that you know they'll be the ones who don't survive. for example in night of the living dead, possibly on of the best horror films i have seen to date (and i have seen most if not all) the sudden change of camera angle to the stuffed heads makes you jump and then laugh at yourself. thats how you direct a scary film.. scare, laugh, calm, laugh, cry, calm and then scare again. you don't under any circumstance scare continuously, as by the third scare the audience is bored and can see it coming "oh no a hand grabbed that guy, phew its just his mate.. argh! a zombie at the door!" doesn't really make for a good film... personally i think the only thing that saved the film even partly was a 30second appearance by the actor who played peter in the original so that he could say the line he made famous to begin with! a line they used as the tag for this film... in my opinion this film was a waste of time and money (£11.10 of it not to mention the amount the studio must've fed into this sad excuse for a film) and other than the 30 seconds i just mentioned i wish i could have that time and money back! perhaps next time i'll try to remember that modern horror films will never do justice to their predecessors.