DAWN OF THE DEAD 2004

THE VITALS
Year of Release2004
DirectorZack Snyder

In all honesty this remake of Dawn of the Dead is pretty good. Production values are great and the violence and gore is top-notch. It just misses something. This version of Dawn of the Dead follows a fairly similar storyline and progression to the original. I have to admit, something about the souped-up special effects leaves me feeling like I miss the “Good old Days” so to speak.

The plot itself follows a few small groups of people who find themselves thrust together. After the zombie apocalypse they have all holed up in a shopping mall in an effort to survive. Obviously, with the situation unfolding around them bit by bit, the tensions mount. Relationships between the parties are strained. One by one they are picked of by the hordes of zombies surrounding and breaking into the mall to feast on the survivors. There are slight plot differences between this and the original. There are enough differences to keep it interesting and updated for current fans but no major departures from the original storyline.

One thing that really annoyed me about this film was the fast moving zombies. To me, zombies are supposed to be slow, sluggish and brain dead. These guys run around like Olympic sprinters and seem to be able to master more complex operations than the zombies featured in the original film. It just doesn’t seem right somehow.

That aside, I really don’t have any problems with anything else the film has done. In a way, it’s probably a necessary evil as I’m sure it exposed a whole new generation of scare fans to the work of George Romero.

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