Just saw it, and since the old threads are over 3 months old, I thought I’ll start a new one.
Didn’t expect to, but I liked it a lot! The new stuff, like what happens when a pregnant woman become undead, the guy in the gunshop they couldn’t reach, the fast zombies, it worked for me.
I was worried there wasn’t going to be much gore, but there was a good amount. Coulda been more, though.
I even liked the one asshole security guard guy becoming a sympathetic character.
I loved it too, can’t wait for the DVD. The music was great, especially the ‘lounge’ version of the Disturbed song
Normally, I’d say movies are a matter of purely subjective taste. However, if you prefer the 1994 movie to the 1979 movie, you’re just wrong. Ask God; he’ll back me up.
(Though the first ten minutes are great.)
Of course, I meant the 2004 movie. Incidentally, I just saw Shaun of the Dead. Bloody funny, and some nice in-jokes for Romero fans.
I actually loved it too.
I loved the pace and the fact that they didn’t try to make it funny.
I like the original version as well, but it is very out-dated.
I also liked Shaun of the Dead a lot.
It works as a comedy but is also a pretty good zombie-flick.
I absolutely hated the Resident Evil garbage.
Much better than the original, which I almost shut off from boredom.
Still not terribly good though.
That was probably courtesy of Richard Cheese. That’s his schtick; I hear his veraion of “Gin and Juice” is excellent.
Agree 100%. The remake’s a throw-away lark with a few good moments among your standard horror set-up of Diverse-Group-in-Crisis-Acting-Stupid-when-the-Plot-Demands-It.
The original is funnier, creepier, smarter, more incisive, and better executed in virtually every way.
I agree. I thought the remake was like someone took the premise of the original and stripped away everything that made it great and substituted some generic “boo” moments instead, not to mention a zillion characters I didn’t care a whit about.
There is a scene in the original when the Ken Foree character advises against “fly-boy” getting trigger happy while collecting ammo in the gun shop as he seemed to have ideas of shooting zombies through the metal gates. Those bullets will chase you around here, he warned. But in the 2004 version, we have all sorts of bullets being shot through metal, in a crowded getaway bus, and the like. And what’s really amusing, is that they all meet their mark. Doesn’t matter if Andy Ammo is popping celebrities or some church organ player. They all get 'em in the head. But in the original, there is a sense of reality (as much as there can be in a world where the dead rise) when bullets don’t always end up in the zombie’s skull, such as when Foree had to duck for cover when Flyboy was gunning for one zombie who stood between them. He also had a bad habit of missing.
When I watched this movie in the theaters, I was impressed. I still liked the original better but found this appealing in its own way. But after re-watching it on DVD, and getting it out of my system, I must ask myself what I was thinking. This movie doesn’t even come close to the original. For all the “rules changes” from the original trilogy to this movie, we go from a genuinely frightening world situation to an excuse to make another shoot-'em-up flick. And after all, that’s all this movie really is. In the original trilogy we get cool scenes like a man turning on the radio and hearing “there is an epidemic of mass murder being committed by a virtual army of unknown assassins.” In this one, we see a nurse become an expert marksman overnight. In the original we are warned that “every dead body that isn’t killed becomes one of them. It gets up and kills. Whoever it kills, gets up and kills.” In this one, we learn of the importance of getting Andy since he’s such a great shot, even though everyone else shoots just as well as he does(and when they’re in far more precarious situations then being safe up on a roof). In the first one, there is a nightmare scene where zombies are chowing down on anything that moves. In this one, the zombies stick to a strict human-only diet. And only the infected become one of them.
It isn’t a bad movie. It’s just bad that they stuck the name Dawn of the Dead on it.
Oh, hey, if you like zombie movies, get Zombie Planet from Netflix. Then you will never again need to watch another movie because you will be dead from its awful awfulness.
Or rent it to laugh at the director’s commentary, which is dead serious and self congratulating. If you like to be horrible embarrassed for other people, this one’s for you!
(Sorry 'bout the wee hijack)
ZJ
horribly, that is
ZJ
I’ll admit that the original hasn’t aged well… particularly considering how our culture has moved away from Mall Culture towards Shopping Center and Subdivision Culture. It’s a period piece.
On the other hand, the film itself was just the heart of the matter. The best part of zombie movies, at least as far as I’m concerned, is the discussion and argument afterwards. What WAS Roger’s malfunction? Was the pressure and stress of Armageddon getting to him, or what? What would YOU have done? How would all this have affected YOU? What would WE do, you and I, right now, if the dead rose and began to shamble forth?
The DOTD remake posed questions, sure, but they weren’t the right questions. My questions were things like…
***How does the disease not only bring you back from the dead, but turn you into a hundred-yard-dash champ?
*Why don’t zombies eat dogs?
*Why is it that zombies don’t fear fire at all, but not one of them is willing to jump into the ocean?
Why can zombies punch windshields hard enough to cave them in slightly, but can’t hammer through plate glass store windows?*
I dunno. Maybe I was young enough when I saw the original that the logical inconsistencies escaped me, but those four questions alone sorta derailed my enjoyment of the remake…
I know I’m going to hear about it for this, but I liked the newer version better than the old one.
I know, I know. The original is always better than the remake :rolleyes: , but I thought the original was tired and kind of obvious. It also suffered from the same problem that every zombie movie has; slow zombies aren’t threatening. Try as hard as you want, but any monster that gives you time to pack is just not scary. And yeah, I got the zombie culture bit in the orginal. Really subtle. Nothing as scary as holding a looking glass up to pop culture :rolleyes: Lastly, the whole biker gang thing was just stupid.
In the new one, I thought a lot of it worked well. The directing worked well for me and the fast moving zombies made it actually seem like something to be scared of. Yeah, the fact that everyone always hits the head was a little silly, but without it the movie would’ve been about thirty minutes long. I liked how they weren’t forced out but made the choice to try to find a safer spot. I really liked Andy shooting the “celebrites.” I liked the ending on the island. Real upper that 
Of course, Shaun of the Dead completely trumps them all 
You kids today, no appreciation for the slow, creeping terror that we felt back in the Good Old Days. Today, everything has to be now, now, now and just waiting for the claustrophobia and suffocating loneliness isn’t good enough. You want to be trapped, but only trapped for a few days with your Nintendos, high powered rifle toting psychotics in the next building over and a fully functioning wet bar.
When you’re older, you’ll understand.
In one of the previous threads, someone came up with a much better ending, it’s worth sifting through three or four pages of wondering if you can turn into a zombie from bodily fluid contact during intercourse to get to it.
Sorry but… original beats the shit out’a this version. Hired the remake the other day and was less than impressed… Shawn on the other hand is another matter…
Maybe when I’m old and slow enough for your zombies to catch me I’ll understand 
The main thing I see with the slow zombies is that directors seems to want to have it both ways. They want to play with the slow zombie concept as being somewhat less than treatening but later have to make them seem threatening to build horror.
The biker gang in the original is a good example. At first the biker gang has the upper hand and is just whipping zombie butt, and has been for the entire ride to the mall. Then the zombies just take it up a notch and start killing everyone. Otherwise the movie is a waste.
Also, as was done in Dawn and Shawn of the dead, the heroes make the mistake of stopping in one location. They have no problem dealing with the zombie menace before hand, but suddenly decide to hole up for an extended period of time until the zombies have them surrounded. In the new Dawn, they had a reason to be seeking shelter. The zombies were fast enough to run them down. Old school zombies you could practically skip away from.
Lastly, and I hinted at this in my previous post, keep your cultural rants out of a horror movie. It’s tough enough to make a good scary movie without dragging some tired metaphor along for the ride. Night of the Living Dead was brilliant because it was just zombies and a few people in a shack. There were no views on society or subtle points trying to be made. The zombies were just zombies back from the dead to eat brains and the people were scared and trying to survive.
I should also say that it bugged me in the new version that you had to be bitten to become a zombie instead of just dying. It takes the spook out of it; turns it into zombie outbreak.
I agree 100%. The new Dawn of the Dead is a well-done horror flick, and that’s rare enough as it is without holding it in fault for not having subtle layers of meaning and commentary. The movie had some really great scenes (I liked Anna’s panicked escape from her neighborhood, with the arial shot showing all the chaos around her), excellent makeup & effects, some inventive selections for the soundtrack, and tricky little downer of an ending. Oh, and two words: zombie baby. Amid all the dreck out there, this is one horror movie I didn’t have to apologize to my husband for renting.
I don’t want to get into the original vs. remake discussion, because I’m ashamed to say I’ve never seen the original. Hubby wasn’t too impressed with Last House on the Left, so I’m waiting a bit before subjecting him to more “classics of the genre”.
Aside: I downloaded some Richard Cheese/Lounge Against the Machine tracks because of this movie. I now have a new hero.
People who love the original don’t think the new one is better. Go figure.
How is being surrounded by thousands of mindless, relentless killers who have no other goal in undeath (?) than to wait around for you to make a mistake. Kind of puts the pressure on, no?
A dozen or so bikers who are concerned with living fast and dying young (although leaving a good looking corpse is probably out of the question) and looting/having a good time moreso than survival vs. hundreds or thousands of the mindless, relentless killers who have no other goal in undeath (?) than to wait around for them to make a mistake. Doesn’t quite seem like a fair fight to me.
Haven’t seen SotD yet, so I avoided reading this. The freakin’ READER review gave away the ending! Jerks. I’m trying to wait until I forget what it was before I go see the movie.
Is this directed at me or George Romero? If it’s directed at me, I will suggest that perhaps when you recognize that what I wrote was none-too-subtle sarcasm, you will appreciate the subtler-but-not-really subtlety of Romero’s films.
If it’s directed at Romero, I will direct you to my response to your next comment.
OK, that last comment had to be directed at me. I would ask you to point out a story (pick one, any one from the thousands of years of humans writing/filming/painting/singing) stories (let’s define a story as a narrative with characters and a plot) that a) doesn’t comment in some fashion on the human condition (whether it explain the order of the universe, a didactic text for how to live ones life in society or even a tale designed as a how-to manual. Hell, we can even get post-modern and describe a story as referencing the conventional structures and tropes of a given genre) and I’ll show you a boring story. That’s not to say that a story that has a “higher purpose” is necessarily not boring.
Regarding NotLD: you are wrong. I attended this year’s Movieside Film Festival and Romero was in attendance to discuss Day of the Dead as well as give a general interview. During the discussion, he mentioned that the theme of the Dead movies was essentially that people have to get along or else they will perish. The race element is well-documented as being unintentional, but that certainly adds an interesting element to the movie (when examined as a product of late '60s America), no?
As for other horror movies: the best ones are also more than simple, “jump out go boo” movies that you seem to think they are. They have something to say about life and, well, death. There are certainly knockoffs that just ape the real masterpieces like an NLP student trying to memetically absorb the greateness of his idols, they wear the clothes rather poorly and end up falling flat on their face for wont of weight of substance.
So the metaphysical terror of the original, wherein everyone, no matter how good they or their intentions are, will come back to destroy you and you can’t trust anyone took away from the remake? Bite you go boo isn’t any good?