Dawn of the Dead - remake (2004)

and how it stinks compared to Romero's original

2004 remake

Directed by Zack Snyder

Starring Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber, Mekhi Phifer, Ty Burrell

Rated R/Unrated

Length 109 minutes

ORIGINAL

Directed by George Romero

Starring Ken Foree, Scott Reiniger, Gaylen Ross, David Emge, and Tom Savini

Rated unratesd

Length 126 minutes (U.S. theatrical release)

Attention: spoilers!

Summary

Based on George Romero's unrivaled zombie classic, Dawn Of The Dead, this remake sets the desperate survival attempt of several humans in a shopping mall in a world overrun by multitudes of the undead.  Using supplies from the mall, the survivors face madness, in-fighting, and a growing likelihood that the zombies will bite or devour them.  Despite the tradition, this remake falls waaaaaay short of Romero's masterpiece.  Bottom line: this version is weak and stupidly violent.

Review

"The movie lost its reason for being and so it's an action film." - George Romero on DOTD 2004

Generally speaking, zombie films rock.  That's why so many are produced.  The definitive zombie films are George Romero's three DEAD works: NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968), DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978), and DAY OF THE DEAD (1985).  Romero is to the zombie genre as Leone is to the Western.  And he still rules the genre's artistic standard.  No other zombie flick has proven to be a worthy match.  Danny Boyle's overrated waste of film, 28 DAYS LATER, had the potential to be a zombie fan's wet dream, but it's just a soggy sock - and the baddies technically aren't zombies anyway.  All the anticipation with no pay-off.  (Thanks, Danny, for the blue you-know-whats!  You had one hit in TRAINSPOTTING, a half hit in THE BEACH, and poof.  Your fifteen minutes are UP.)  Dan O'Bannon's RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (1985) is humorous, whacked-out, and fun despite its slight depth.  Hell, how can you go wrong with a legless zombie sprinting on bloody stumps to hunt the brains of a doomed cop?  Pittsburgh native Tom Savini, the famous special effects/stunt magus who cut his teeth on several Romero films, FRIDAY THE 13TH, etc., did a splendid remake of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD in 1990.  Cripes, he improved it.  Tor Ramsey's embarrassing CHILDREN OF THE LIVING DEAD (2001) doesn't even deserve an insult, despite Tom Savini's cameo.  A film that could have been an all-out explosion of Savini zombie mayhem...well, like I said, an insult isn't deserved.   Ryuhei Kitamura's Japanese film, VERSUS (2000), is a wonderfully mindless, cartoony, zombie/mobster/samurai hybrid obviously influenced by DAWN and THE MATRIX.  Its lack of morality is its chief weakness.  We mustn't forget the Haitian zombies and Bela Lugosi in WHITE ZOMBIE (1932).  The RESIDENT EVIL films are surprisingly worthy chapters in collective zombie cinema, however.  Viva Milla Jovovich!  (Cheer that three times fast.)

Before hacking DOTD 2004 to pieces, let's consider what immortalized the original 1978 DAWN OF THE DEAD.  First of all, it wasn't a Hollywood blockbuster star fest.  The splendid actors weren't commonly recognizable so predictability who might survive was low.  And the scary fact that anyone can become victims, survivors, or heroes in complete social breakdown (particularly due to the resurrection of grisly corpses) is more effectively emphasized by actors who are relatively unknown - and not type-cast or granted divinity status by stupid celebrity worship.  Secondly, the original DAWN followed Romero's revolutionary NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.  NIGHT served as an introductory piece for DAWN's more intense, heavier subject matter.  And the setting difference symbolized the increased scale: from a rural Pittsburgh farmhouse to Monroeville Mall (in the days when malls were still rare, magnificent novelties).  NIGHT can be considered THE seminal zombie film.  So its sequel walked down an important (blood) red carpet a decade later.  This time the central conflict made stronger implications: about human nature, prevalent self-preservation, and the ominous fragility of so-called civilization.  Set in a mall stocked with countless goods and luxuries, DAWN shows both humanity's crucial reliance on goods (from canned food to firearms) as well as its fetish for accumulative fashion, amenities, convenience, and variety.  What better way to illustrate objects' relevant worth to humanity than to contrast living human beings and animated corpses amidst a wealthy supply of things?

Objects' basic uselessness in the absence of living human beings is a frightening reminder of our fleeting significance in the physical world.  A sexy dress on a warm-blooded model is pleasant; the same dress on a bruised and bloated corpse is repugnant.  A microwave heats meals only if a living hand plugs it in, sets the timer, presses the start button.  Hammers, screwdrivers, guns, and machetes are valuable tools only to rational beings who know how to utilize them.  A hammer or gun is useful whether society collapses or not.  Money, however, hinges on many more factors.  Money's worth is also precariously contingent on market status, economic structure, and overall societal infrastructure.  In depression and disaster it can be almost or entirely valueless.  This value dynamic is a typical topic in survival films, and particularly poignant in the original DAWN OF THE DEAD.  Martial law has been declared; makeshift television broadcasts feature debates about what to do and humanity's redefined identity.  Four characters (two military men and a civilian man and woman) retreat to a mall as zombies proliferate all over the country.  Before long they realize that they've chosen an ideal fortress stocked with everything they need to subsist and defend themselves - and more.  This fact leads them to risk open confrontations with wandering zombies.  Eventually they block off the entrances with tractor trailer trucks and plunder shops as much as they need/want, goofing around in mock shopping sprees, tossing obsolete cash around in the mall bank, etc..  Guns and ammunition are absolutely indispensable in zombie films - and these cats have the pick of the litter: a zombie survivalist's nirvana.  The mall's purpose has shifted.  Rather than a marketplace for excess and waste, it has become an unbelievable Godsend to the besieged foursome.  Fran (Gaylen Ross), sensing the potential for avarice, stresses: "We can take what we need.  What we need to survive."  Steve (David Emge) begins to feel the greedy, hoard tendency when their stash is later threatened: "It's ours."  Aside from their therapeutic frivolity, they appreciate things in a more sober way than the average person during prosperity and peace.  When zombies eventually overrun the mall, things' basic needlessness without rational humans is stark.  Zombies knck over expensive merchandise, squeeze out creams and shampoo under foot, etc.

After months pass, a brutal biker gang discovers the ideal fortress and ruins everything.  The bikers represent human folly without restraint, mindless consumption and waste, and sadistic delight.  They invade the mall,  rejoice in vandalism, smashing of merchandise, and needless abuse of zombies (severing heads, smashing with sledge hammers, gunning at random), and exploit the state of emergency as a destructive spree.  Like the zombies, they lack care for anything beyond instinct and impulse.  Not only were the masses complacent and selfish before the breakdown, but many have become worse afterward.  The breakdown did not occur from without but from within.  The walking dead symbolize humanity's capacity for mindless appetite - and its dread of becoming something else, becoming otherly, completely out of control.  As Peter (Ken Foree) says: "You get overconfident...underestimate those suckers...and you get eaten!"  Though humanity has historically tended to disintegrate into barbarism (mainly through war and persecution), it is painfully aware of this tendency.  So an insoluble conflict is evident: the creative and destructive impulses in humankind vacillating within undeniable, harsh mortality.  Humans tightrope walk between the two main impulses, simultaneously defying and gravitating toward death.  Survivors in zombie films maniacally fight to preserve their lives.  The mere thought of becoming a monster after death is horrific.  That's why a character usually ends up committing suicide or requesting execution in such films.  Zombies are the perfect manifestation of our deepest fear and fascination.  Zombies are hard-to-face reflections.  As Peter says in the original DAWN: "They're us, that's all."

In a critical scene, the TV interviewer asks a scientist what he thinks should be done.  The scientist suggests systematically feeding the zombies to keep them controlled.  Then he proposes nuking major cities where zombies congregate.  A small audience condemns his ideas and he wearily says: "This is not the Republicans versus the Democrats...It's more crucial than that.  We are down to the line, folks.  We are down to the line...We've got to remain rational, logical, logical, logical.  We've got to remain logical...There's no choice.  It has to be.  It's that or the end."  The interviewer refutes him: "Scientists always think in those kinda terms.  It doesn't work that way.  That's not how people really are."  Indeed.  Emotion without logic and logic without emotion make zombies of us.  And we run and hide from, beat, stab,  and mock the zombie sides of ourselves.  Overall, the visceral, eternally attractive Alamo situation (which can represent civilization's last stand) makes DAWN a captivating depiction of human will,  cooperation, and hope.

Are zombies all symbolism and metaphysical implication?  Of corpse not!  They provide "safe" objects of violence for horror enthusiasts.  To see live humans pummeled, mutilated, blasted, and decapitated is fundamentally terrifying.  But when butchery is done to lifeless monsters, then the gore threshold is considerably higher.  An attacking zombie getting his head chopped off can be comical, whereas the same done to a real human is repulsive.  Curiosity of dismemberment is also entertained.  Seeing bodies pulled open or into pieces reminds us of the human body's meat composition, its fragile form and functionality.  (DAY OF THE DEAD particularly featured graphic dismemberment.)  Another zombie plus is their relatively slow speed and rudimentary motor skills.  Since they tend to stagger (more or less according to the causes of death and degree of decay) they travel slowly.  This enables living humans to outrun them, maneuver around them (using kicks, punches, whacks, or shots if necessary), and keep a few at bay at a time.  Humans taking advantage of this stock zombie feature is key in many flicks.  Boyle's crummy 28 DAYS LATER had the zombie-like monsters able to run quickly; they were much more virile, dexterous, and nimble.  DAWN OF THE DEAD 2004 also modified its zombies so, losing another basic appeal of the 1978 original, which featured zombies so slow that bikers enjoyed a silly pie-in-the-face spree on the poor undead.  If a zombie isn't sluggish enough for you to smash a pie in its face and survive, then it's too quick!

Okay.  Time to slice and dice DOTD 2004.  Although I dig Ving Rhames and Sarah Polley as headliners, no character stands out as anybody very special.  The mall setting seems less of a homage to Romero's DAWN and more of a gratuitous resource for stuff.  I brightened up when I spotted the cameos of Tom Savini (who, aside from special effects, played Blades in the 1978 film) and Ken Foree.  Their appearances alone outweighed the contemporary cast.  The zombies are almost exactly like the 28 DAYS LATER goons, with a lot of snarling and little eeriness.  The new DAWN didn't show the civilian/military delight in zombie hunting, nor the chillingly provocative television discussions about the social fallout.  (It did take time to take a typical jab at religion through an overdone TV evangelist, played by Ken Foree.  NEXT!)  

The survivors were made into a predictable, motley bunch: hard ass black cop, skinny chick turned shotgunning bad ass, psycho stereotyped redneck racist white boys, ass-cappin' hoodlum black boy, mild-mannered do-gooder dude who of course gets bitten, wise-cracking jerk and his slutty bimbo.  A silly, gross-out zombie baby birth and slaughter serves as a stupid gimmick (and a subtle disrespect for birth compared to the original's treatment of unintended preganancy).  No finesse.  The camera work is juvenile compared to the Romero's and Mike Gornick's.  A somewhat hopeful ending like the ends of DAWN 1978 and DAY were missing.  And despite an unrated director's cut release on DVD, even the gore fell flat.  Death by zombie just didn't shine.  Savini's skills made DAWN - and DAY OF THE DEAD in particular - delightfully freakish and gory.  Those films are evidence of keen artists, not big-company action quilters who stitch together a flick with half the creativity and odds against them as Romero's gang.  

Of course, most of DOTD 2004's failure is due to lack of innovation.  What else could these new cats DO with a genre masterpiece?  The venture was as futile and wasteful as redoing PSYCHO and LOLITA.  Very few remakes are worthy.  Cameron Crowe, for instance, made Alejandro Amenabar's weak film ABRE LOS OJOS (1997) into a cinematic masterpiece: VANILLA SKY (2001) - including Tom Cruise's best performance to date.  Likewise, James Cameron intensified TITANIC (1998), despite its gimmicks.  Perhaps the producers and Snyder and screenplay writer James Gunn (who wrote 2002's SCOOBY-freakin'-DOO) should have just let Romero's DAWN rest in peace.  This contemporary attempt is indicative of Hollywood's general quality dearth.  Just as modern construction can't duplicate the phenomenal Egyptian and Mayan pyramids, filmmaking hacks can't redo Romero.  Tom Savini managed only because he loves the art, is close to the originator, and followed the master's guidance.

I recommend renting the remake.  And I suggest watching Romero's 1978 DAWN OF THE DEAD beforehand.  I'll throw Zack Snyder and his crew a bone: they tried.  And they rode a huge wave to box office success,  ironically knocking Gibson's artistic triumph, PASSION OF THE CHRIST,  off the #1 rung it's opening weekend.  (I found it perversely humorous that a film about violence and resurrected dead competed with a film about...violence and resurrection.)  Like Romero, I consider DOTD 2004 a decent action flick - nothing more.  Thankfully, Romero has maintained a relatively independent, artistic integrity that rejects the corporate, gold digging film-production scum.  I suspect that's a big reason why Romero's fourth zombie film, LAND OF THE DEAD (formerly destined to be called DEAD RECKONING), is currently being produced in Canada.  Damn whatever kept him from filming in Pittsburgh this time!  (But don't let the bastards rise again.  I'm saving my ammo for when the commie Martians finally attack.)

review by David Herrle 12/2004