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Dawn of the Dead: Unrated Director's Cut (2004) Directed by: Zack Snyder Starring: Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber, Mekhi Phifer, Ty Burrell Reviewed by: Scott West |
| Final Score: Movie:   DVD Extras: Overall Score: |
| Being a huge fan of the Romero's original "of the Dead" trilogy and having seen the remakes of Night of the Living Dead and Day of the Dead, I was very leary of this movie. As I usually do, I skipped the theater release and waited for the DVD. In the meantime, I read a lot of reviews to brace myself for what was surely a horrible day in horror (and not in a good way). I don't know if it was because I expected so much worse or because I kind of liked the idea of speedy zombies a la 28 Days Later, but this movie was actually pretty good. In addition to the faster zombies, the story tosses out all of Romero's commentary of the herd mentality of society and focuses on being a straight survial horror flick. The new story also tosses in a lot of new characters, a few of which grate on your nerves if you let them. They are definately less interesting than Romero's original quartet of heroes. The version I eventually watched was the unrated director's cut which I'm told has a few more minutes of "character development" in addition to the obvious gory scenes. I'm sure this is unnecessary since these are pretty cookie-cutter characters. There's a tough cop, a helpful nurse, a rich asshole, a gangbanger with a past and a pain-in-the-ass redneck security guard among others. Yes, there are quite a few more denizens of the mall this time around, but that's okay since you know that there'll be a few turning into zombie chow along the way. The zombies are definately better looking this time around. The FX have come a long way since Savini painted people grey and used spare innards from a slaughterhouse for guts. For gorehounds, this is a treat. There's lots of interesting zombies and quite a few bloody deaths. The final fifteen minutes are a great gory blowout. Wait. Running zombies. More characters. A totally new story without the socio-political commentary. If this weren't set in a mall during a zombie outbreak, I wouldn't even know it was a remake of Dawn of the Dead. In all honesty, it really isn't. It's more of a new story with the same general idea. If you look at it that way, it becomes a fun zombie romp rather than a horrible trainwreck that strays far from the original material. The DVD transfer is nice with decent 5.1 audio. The special features have a few good points, but nothing much to scream about. There are several short documentaries on the creation of the zombies and the art of exploding heads. There's footage of the newcasts used in the background of the film; these were better off remaining there as they seem rather laughable when you watch them on their own. There are a few minutes of deleted scenes which wouldn't have added to the story anyway. The worst feature here is a mini-documentary titled "Andy's Last Days Revealed" which is said to be camcorder footage found after the incident showing how one character was living through and eventually died. This is so bad, it almost brings the score for the extras down a bit. So, there's not much here, but the main movie is fun enough to watch. Back to Reviews |
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