Like so many people at the time, I was very skeptical when I
heard about the remake of Dawn Of The Dead. George Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead was
a classic horror film that even had social commentary. What could a new version
of this story offer to us today? Well, for one thing, it wound up giving us
almost two hours of crackling good entertainment--and in today’s atmosphere of movies
made without brains, that’s saying a lot. The build up of tension within DOTD’s
first five minutes is simply unbearable. You know what’s coming, and director
Zack Snyder knows that you know what’s coming, but he still slowly and cautiously
builds everything up to a crescendo of suspense--until it’s unleashed in a fury
of violence in the one room that’s supposed to be the safest in the house: the
bedroom.
This is where Ana (Sarah Polley, who’s a long way from the little girl in The
Adventures Of Baron Munchausen) first encounters the undead in the form of her
young neighbor Vivian, who stops by Ana’s house to put the bite on her
husband Luis. After just barely fighting off the terror tot from hell, Ana
now has to deal with her own husband, who rises up to attack her. Soon, she’s
driving frantically through the streets of suburban Milwaukee, where fiery
explosions are erupting in the distance as people all around her are being
hunted down by berserker maniacs. After a car crash, Ana finds herself facing
the business end of a shotgun, with a cop named Kenneth (the always good Ving
Rhames) curtly asking her to say something. "Please," she simply says.
Soon Ana joins Kenneth and several others as they hole up within a shopping mall--and although this version lacks the sharp criticism of consumers that Romero’s film had, Snyder still manages to amp up the zombie intensity for a new generation, while blending in plenty of characterization and some very black humor. The little girl zombie at the beginning of the film lets us know that there will be no punches pulled, here. No one is safe; no prisoners are taken--and thanks to this tone, which Snyder smartly sets up very early, the suspense is that much more riveting. The zombies--who are never actually called that in the film--are faster and far more savage than the slow-moving sleepwalkers in Romero’s movie. They’re truly a threat to be feared.
But, thankfully, the heroes are just as much on the ball, as well. Polley,
better known as an indie movie queen, is superb as Ana, who relies on her
training as a professional nurse to help her get through the madness--yet she’s
still a human being, who's not entirely invincible. Neither is Kenneth, who
wants nothing more than to dump this bunch and get to his brother at a local
military base. The entire cast is superb, and there are even cameos by actors
from the original DOTD, such as Tom Savini and Ken Foree. Smartly directed, and
wisely plotted out, the remake of Dawn Of The Dead has become just as much as
classic as the film it's been remade from.
--SF
