Dawn of the Dead

Image credit: Reel Rundown

I put off watching horror flicks and zombie movies in particular for a long time because a) I used to get scared quite easily and b) the gore factor. Having watched quite a few scary movies now I can say that I’ve grown out of this phase and so am now unafraid of familiarizing myself with the classic –and not so classic- zombie flicks. After all, the zombie is the ‘it’ monster when it comes to horror.

Last night’s movie was Zack Snyder’s remake of George Romero’s 1978 film Dawn of the Dead. The film depicts the bizarre outbreak of radiation that is reanimating the dead and turning them into cannibalistic corpses. Fast as jungle cats and just as vicious, they overrun the streets of Milwaukee forcing Ana (Sarah Polley) and a group of survivors to hole up in a shopping mall until they are either rescued or come up with an escape plan.

One of the best things about monster movies –and zombies in particular- is the underlying allegorical message or social threat that they represent. Zombies –I’ve always felt- are particularly brilliant means of depicting the inevitable breakdown of society, as the horde outside bays for blood and the group inside begins to tear itself apart under the strain. Once holed up with a bunch of strangers social etiquette and your sense of good will toward men goes completely out the window and part of the fun of watching zombie movies is reveling in the fact that the arrogant dickhead characters are bound to get eaten.

That was a nice part about Dawn of the Dead actually. Naturally it had a bunch of white guys with superiority complexes that turned them into total assholes and I couldn’t wait to see them taken down a peg –or several- and thrown into the belly of the beast, but the film actually took one of these characters and gave him a pretty interesting redemption story: saving his soul –so to speak- before the end. I found this particularly nice because one thing about horror movies and zombie flicks in particular is that they don’t have a long runtime and often feature a central core of characters that don’t get a back story because everyone’s suddenly thrown into the apocalyptic deep end. Some movies do a good job of dropping hints and showing without telling who these characters are –or were before- and it’s good when they do because it makes it a little easier to form some sort of attachment to them. Snyder’s film though not entirely reaching the critical point of emotional attachment managed to succeed in bringing just enough life and depth to its characters so audiences could be upset or peeved when they eventually bit the dust.

Image credit: Moviemovie

The zombies themselves are actually quite frightening: blood soaked, decomposing, and mindless, though when they get their sights on food they are scary A F moving with impressive speed and snarling like jungle cats.

As far as zombie flicks go Dawn of the Dead is pretty typical with a story and setting that doesn’t leave a lot of room for experimentation. However, the performances are solid, the monsters are sufficiently scary, and by the final shot you feel like the punching bag of a heavyweight champ.

Starring: Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jack Weber, Mekhi Phifer, Ty Burell, Michael Kelly, Kevin Zegers, Lindy Booth, Jayne Eastwood, Boyd Banks, Inna Korobokina, R. D. Reid, Kim Poirier, and Matt Frewer