Dawn Of The Dead (2004) - no spoilers in O/P

Cafe Society
61

I dunno. I have yet to actually catch the first twenty minutes of that movie. But in the DAWN remake, we hear that someone was bitten in a bar fight in the morning hours of Day Zero, and moved to ICU later that afternoon; we may assume he was one of the first to be bitten by zombies.

The morning of Day One, our heroine’s hubbins is attacked, killed, and then tries to eat HER. She flees, to see that her entire neighborhood (and the entire town) is alive with madness and anarchy, as the living dead hunt the living.

At some point later that day, she and her new friends arrive at the mall. Shortly thereafter, we see a montage of news broadcasts on TVs in the appliance section of a store. All hell is breaking loose worldwide. No one knows anything.

At some point later, an announcer is seen announcing that his station is going off the air, and he doesn’t know when they’ll be coming back on. It is implied that this is the case with all other stations, too. It isn’t a hundred percent clear exactly when this happens, but it is implied that it occurs on Day One or Day Two.

Now, admittedly, the new zombies are WAY meaner than the old ones. They tend to swarm, and they run like sonsabitches. It’s easy to see how the news stations would tend to blink out, one by one, fairly quickly… but, again, howthehell is the disease spreading so damn fast? And how’d we get worldwide in ONE DAY? Man, that’s faster and meaner than Ebola, Smallpox, and the Bubonic Plague, all put together!

62

Well, just saw the movie. Definitely an effective horror movie, but I’ll stick with Romero. I didn’t like the fast zombies; I should probably put this in the other thread, but as somebody else here said, with the fast zombies I just saw them as a crazy mob. They seemed more like wild, predatory animals than the eerie, pathetic, nightmarish zombies I love. (Especially since they all growled like cheetas.)

And with the larger group of survivors, I didn’t feel as much interest about them as with the tight group of four in the original movie. I felt for Andy, of Andy’s Gun World. And Chips? Good dog. Deserves a biscuit.

Man, Ving Rhames is a big guy. I wonder if his character’s name, Kenneth, was a nod to Ken Foree, who played Peter in the original.

All in all… I won’t be making shelf space for this version, but if they put out a DVD with deleted scenes I’ll rent it, and hope that the story and characters were fleshed out a bit more.

Now, as for the audience… I went to an early Saturday matinee, by myself. Just before the movie started, a group of eight or so young people (young enough to be my bastard children) trooped in and sat behind me. Now, they didn’t talk during the movie, but what they did was giggle – a lot. Laughing and giggling everytime something horrible happened:

The husband’s throat is ripped out by the undead little girl? Laughter. Neighbor is run over by the ambulance? Giggling. Deathly ill, bitten elderly lady in a wheelbarrow? Nothing but funny. Woman dies while trying to give birth? Big laugh. I finally turned around and asked, “Could you be louder, please?” I’ve been told I look a bit intimidating; normally I try to minimize that aspect, but in this case it came in handy, and seemed to shut them up.

Not only that, but they clearly didn’t recognize Tom Savini. So what the fuck is wrong with these kids? My guess is that they’ve grown up with horror/comedy movies, and assume everything is tongue-in-cheek. If so, that’s sad, because it means they can never appreciate a real horror movie properly.

I agree that the opening was very effective; Johnny Cash’s “When the Man Comes Around” is a pretty good choice for an end-of-the-world soundtrack.

63

[spoiler]Baldwin, what you shoulda done was VERY SUDDENLY lurch to your feet, spin around, leap up onto your seat, lean WAY the hell over into their faces and SNAAARRRL, snorking air up into your nostrils, while rattling it back out your mouth, complete with face twisted into a hateful grimace, showing all sixty-one teeth, you know?

I woulda liked to have heard if they coulda laughed THAT one off.[/spoiler]

64

Not all plagues are the same though. Considering the ultra short incubation period we’re dealing with in DotD, it’s plausible.

65

One quick question, why are you referring to this as the “O’Bannon Version”? As far as I can tell, no-one with that name worked on this movie.

66

Nobody is referring to THIS movie as the O’Bannon version. Dan O’Bannon wrote the script for Return of the Living Dead*, which was linked to the Romero films, but in RotLD, the zombies spoke, were fast, and they ate “Braiiiins,” a complete contrast to Romero’s slow, mute, flesh-eating zombies.

67

Another bit of history: John Russo and George Romero apparently co-own the “living dead” trademark.

Russo was responsible for the godawful 30th Anniversary Special Edition NOTLD DVD, with new scenes included. He was also responsible for a not-very-good novel, a sequel to NOTLD. And he was, lastly, responsible for the Return Of The Living Dead movies, although Dan O’Bannon wrote the first one.

Based on what I’ve seen of Russo’s so-called talents, I strongly suspect the reason the first ROTLD film was so good was because of O’Bannon, who was also responsible for the first ALIEN movie…

68

Ah, cheers gobear

69

I laughed constantly through this movie. It’s not supposed to be SCARY, it’s fun, a little creepy and hilarious.

When CJ throws the propane tank and shoots it from the top of the bus… hilarious. The same as when he dies.

I also thought the hubby getting distracted by the live one when he’s chasing his wife at the beginning was a laugh riot

I was laughing so hard I was in tears. Fantastic movie. I’ll see it again.

70

Well, you’re wrong. And stay the fuck away from my seat in the theatre if you can’t keep quiet.

71

OK, everyone’s not allowed to laugh at the movies unless Baldwin laughs first.

Get over yourself.

72

I saw DOTD Friday night and I gotta say I enjoyed it. It was better than most horror movies that have come out in the past few years. I’d say the fast zombies worked a little better in 28 Days Later though (but then again that’s because they weren’t really zombies!).

I was a little thrown off by the whole ‘zombie bites cause zombies’. I kept expecting the old lady and Andre to get up and be all zombified. That was a little disappointing.

I’m curious though, how did they get into the mall in the first place? And how were they able to get in but the zombies weren’t? Did I blank out and miss something there?

73

I went to see it yesterday, and I have not seen the original version yet. It was a fun movie, and I had a good time watching it, but I don’t think I’ll see it again–the suspense is the best thing it has going for it, and there are a few plot holes that I didn’t realize till after the fact that would be obvious the next time around.

I definitely want to see the original now.

74

gobear, that was a terrible pun.

They did show that the zombies were a worldwide phenomena, of course, they ahd the great scene of the soldiers gunning the press corps down at the White House lawn, but they also cut to the reporter in…Jerusalem? Iraq? Some Mideaste-looking vicinity where he’s eventually eaten when zombies come around the corner. What I wanted to know was, what was with showing the Muslims praying during the opening credits? How were they equating them with the zombies?

I did have to say that the movie needed about another hour and it had lost all the commentary of the original. The only dehumanization I saw was the implication that working as a half-wit mall security guard will turn you into a hardened jackass (to wit: the new guy is the one who shows compassion). There were also some surprising character shifts that really messed with things.

And what’s with all the swipes from other movies? It’s getting to be where I want to take a score card and see what movies I can come up with (granted, some of these might be a me reading too much into them): we got ALIENS, PITCH BLACK, 28 DAYS LATER, hell, JUDGEMENT NIGHT for all I know…

The one question that really bothered me was: how did they get into the mall in the first place? We saw them break the window to get from whatever store they broke into to the mall proper, but upon checking all of the doors, we saw that they were all locked. How’d they get in the store in the first place?

That said, there were a couple of interesting ideas that got thrown in, even if it was the screenwriter going, “now what if you were trapped alone on the roof?”

All in all, though, my brother bought me a copy of Max Brooks’ spook of the Worst-Case Guides. I’ll have to go through and see how much of this movie they got from that book (they reference the book on the movie’s web site).

I was going to ask this question in GQ, but maybe someone can answer it here (in modified form): why did they take the rifles out of Andy’s gun store? Why not take shotguns (assuming there were some, which we couldn’t see)? Also, why did they use dear slugs instead of buckshot? I’d think the buckshot would increase the likelihood of inflecting fatal head trauma by minimizing the aim a given shooter would need (although they all seemed to be surprisingly good shots). The zombies seemed to go down pretty easy what with the croquet mallets and all, so perhaps the lack of calcium in their diet led to bone deneration…

75

I hate it when I come into a thread and pretty much everything I wanted to say has already been said. That’ll learn me to wait until day three…

So I’ll just add that the mention of Frank Murphy in the trailer for “I, Robot” cracked my shit up.

76

Well heck you might as well ask how all of them became such good shots in such a short time. The police/ex marine is a given. Maybe even the Mall security may have had some training. The Nurse? I don’t know.

I was also intrigued by the shot showing of the Muslim’s praying as well. I mean I guess it is a religous thing with the end of the world and all but were they trying to say something or was that an instantly recognizable religious act they could show in the two to three seconds?

Ok who wants to bet the ending will be used for a sequel

If they continue riffing on Romero’s work the island will have a military base and our heroes manage a last second escape setting up the whole Day of the Dead scenario

77

Well, I finally got to see it today. I liked it, a lot. The Romero lover in me was disappointed but I am glad I saw the first 10 minutes on USA last week and that gave me an opportunity to mentally prepare for what this movie presented. If I had not accepted it as another “reinterpretation” I would have probably been disappointed.

Good points:

Great special effects, some of the best “gun-shot” wounds/damage I’ve ever seen done in a movie.

Great make-up, these zombies just looked kick-ass. I thought the re-make of NotLD did a great job updating the “zombie look” and this took it to a whole new level.

I was a big fan of Jake Weber from his work on Mind of the Married Man on HBO last year. He was really solid in this movie.

I liked the interaction being Ving and “Andy”, that was well done and I felt genuine saddness at Andy’s “Hungry” sign.

The cameos were a great touch, although none of the actors have aged very well - exception being Savini.

Bad points (most mentioned already):

Method of “infection”. Boo! Only bitten by zombies = zombie? Blech. I too wanted to see the older woman and Mekhi get back up and start munching.

Speed of outbreak - it was just too fast given the method of infection.

Fast movers - they were very well done, superior to 28 Days Later in my opinion but still… gimme the Romero slow-movers any day.

How did they get in the mall anyway?

Lack of empathy that the zombies are “us”. That has always been a hallmark of Romero films and I felt it just wasn’t there in this one. Lack of Iron City Beer drinkin’ redneck zombie-killers was missed too.

Overall I really enjoyed it and I’ll see it again and probably add it to the DVD collection when it comes out.

MeanJoe

78

The stupid girl went after the dog. The crew went to rescue her since they had to go to Andy’s gunshop to get weapons anyway. They got the weapons, people died on the way back. They couldn’t get the door closed to the mall before the zombies got there. So since the mall had been compromised they had to make a break for it in their modified mall busses.

I liked the movie, but this is what got stuck in my craw:

Andy owns a FUCKING GUN STORE. Why on earth did he spend his days playing chess, when he could be using his arsonal of weapons and ammo to good use and be shooting a ton of zombies dead every day??

79

Sorry, I should have been more specific. By “they” I was referring to the group of survivors and the plot hole others have pointed out. They are outside the mall and then the next scene is from inside the mall where they use a toilet to break out the glass of a store and enter the central part of the mall. How did they get from outside to the inside of the store?

MeanJoe

80

In that case Joe, I haven’t the foggiest idea.