Dawn of the Dead

Dawn of the Dead: One Brain Dead Zombie Flick

01/15/2005

Dawn of the Dead. Dir. Zack Snyder. 2004.

I've seen a lot of remakes of classic horror films during the past few years . . . Willard, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Night of the Living Dead . . . and for the most part, I have walked out of the theater--if not elated, at least not cursing that I want my money back. However, I think I'd like a partial refund of my money for Zack Snyder's remake of George Romero's 1978 classic, Dawn of the Dead.

For a remake to be enjoyable, it must do two seemingly contradictory things: it must remain faithful to the original story, and it must add a new twist. This new twist was present in the other remakes I've mentioned. Tom Savini's 1990 remake of George Romero's 1968 Night of the Living Dead is perhaps the best of the bunch. His remake is faithful to the original down to preserving some of Romero's original camera shots and dialog, as well as the basic plot, but he rehabilitates the character of Barbara. In the 1968 version, Barbara was a slobbering hysteric (played by the only professional actress in the bunch) who seemed to be doing her version of Ophelia. Savini's short haired Barbara falls and cries at first, but then morphs into Riply from Alien when she dons a pair of pants, grabs a rifle, and saves her own life. Glen Morgan's 2003 remake of Willard pays homage to the original plot in many ways, including a notable scene where his rats devour a cat while Michael Jackson's "Ben," the theme from the original, plays on the sound system. And Marcus Dispels remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre fills in holes in the plot present in the original. Snyder's Dawn of the Dead does a few of these things, but not enough to really justify a remake.

Perhaps the problem is that there wasn't much of a plot to the first Dawn of the Dead, and this remake reproduces that deficiency. I guess that's the modus operandi with Romero's zombies though. They don't exist for any particular reason--they just are, and the zombie phenomena occurs overnight without warning. Some half-hearted explanations are offered: in the medical realm, zombies could be the result of a virus that could be studied it only civilization as we know it weren't breaking down before our eyes, or in the metaphysical realm, hell is full so now the dead are walking the earth. However, the film isn't about explaining the existence of zombies, or even finding a cure beyond making the discovery that if they're shot in the head, then they remain dead. Instead, the film is about the living not becoming the living impaired. Another problem is the lack of any character development. I am writing this review a mere few hours after having seen the film, and for the life of me, I couldn't remember any of the characters's names on a bet (save for the dog). True, character development wasn't a hallmark of any of the more successful remakes I mentioned earlier, but then again, those remakes also had other things about them that made them memorable and entertaining. All in all, the film resembled a very long video game in that beginning to end was filled with zombies and shooting and running and very little else.

I was also particularly unimpressed with Snyder's zombies. Friends of mine told me I would really like this particular film, for these "were not my father's zombies" (or mine actually--I was allowed to stay up by myself and watch the original Night of the Living Dead when I was 7 years old in 1969, and it scared the shit out of me and scarred me for life). Instead, the zombies were faster. True, they weren't the shuffling, slow-eyed zombies of the days of yore, the ones that even Barbara in the remake of Night of the Living Dead could outrun. But then again, they weren't the seemingly crack or caffeine addicted zombies of Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (2002) either. These zombies were slow, and not particularly menacing. The zombie throng that the survivors must snow plow their way through towards the end of the film was particularly unaffecting, as they resembled not so much the flesh eating living impaired but the drunken mindless hoards who congregate in the streets outside of my house every Mardi Gras. And aside from a few fierce bites the zombies inflicted, they just weren't all that scary.

I will give the director one kudos however. The soundtrack was well chosen. The film opens with one of Johnny Cash's final songs, "When the Man Comes Around," an evocative and chilling representation of Armageddon, and ends on a more humorous note with Jim Carroll's "All My Friends Have Died." Also, the closing credits were faithful to Romero's own, where the viewer gets up and leaves at his or her own peril, as the final parts of the story are being related in a blurry visual memoir in between lists of gaffers and caterers and best boys. Also, Matt Frewer had a bit of fun in a dual role, as both a doomed survivor, and earlier, in a hair piece, as a newscaster (un-credited for this role on the Internet Movie Database, but that had to be him), reminiscent of his old days in the eighties as Max Headroom.

Dawn of the Dead is worth the price of a rental, and watching it is improved if the viewer has the ability to make smart ass comments with friends. By the time I got around to seeing Dawn, it was only showing at one of the older cinemas in our city that specializes in art films and extended runs of more commercial movies, and as luck would have it, I was the only person in the theater. I noticed that my enjoyment of the film was significantly increased when my daughter came to join me after her movie was over and we could both make stupid comments without others throwing popcorn at us.