Dawn of the Dead 2004

(Zack Snyder;2004)

A strange plague has taken over the populace as apparently dead people are  murdering and eating the living. A group of survivors find solace in a shopping mall where they try to survive long enough for help to arrive.

Pathetic. Not only do they cast the atrocious Sarah Polley in this horrible attempt to remake this classic film, but the “zombies” run. Long gone are the days apparently when decent zombie films had the old standby shambling rotting dead, only to be replaced by this new generation kiddie tripe where the zombies sprint after their victims (a la 28 Days Later, which in my opinion is not a zombie film at all) and make animal sounds. One child hisses like a snake, whereas the next “zombie” makes some sort of wild cat sound as he pounces on his victim. Not to mention the inclusion of various Nu-Metal songs on the soundtrack courtesy of Drowning Pool (when will filmmakers stop using that Godawful “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor” song in every fucking action sequence?) and Disturbed. The gore is adequate, with much of it done with the far superior latex makeup method rather than some crappy CGI. That’s not to say that there isn’t any CGI in the film, however, but for what it’s worth, the CGI is palatable. Where this one falls short is the presentation. The running dead don’t convey that whole isolated desolate feeling that was evident in Romero’s original Dead trilogy, it’s more like watching a prison riot.  In fact, it’s really hard to see how they can justify this drivel as having been based on Romero’s original screenplay, when the “filmmakers” have taken so many liberties with the material. There’s a couple of amusing scenes involving a chainsaw, some interesting plot diversions, and a very small amount of T&A/womanflesh (with the exception of Polley) that saved Dawn of the Dead 2004 from a rating of 1. For masochists and idiots only.

Overall Score: 3

(Rating scale is out of 10, with 1 being the worst and 10 the best)