31 Days Of Horror: Day #6 - DAWN OF THE DEAD (2004)

 

 Dawn Of The Dead, (2004), Directed by Zack Snyder

Grade: A - 

I really have to be honest here:  I'm not a fan of George Romero.  Yes, he made the zombie genre famous with Night Of The Living Dead, but to me that movie really wasn't all that great to begin with.  The only 2 movies that he's directed that I have liked are Creepshow and The Dark Half.  Other than that, his movies kinda bore me.

...Which is the way I felt about the original Dawn Of The Dead.  It bored me.  I couldn't tell you one memorable thing that I remember from it other than zombies walking through a shopping mall.  Roger Ebert loves it and considers it a classic.  Um, ok.  I like reading Ebert's reviews, but sometimes he can confuse me.  (3 stars for the remake of The Honeymooners? Rog, come on!)

Like I said, I was bored with the original Dawn Of The Dead, so when the remake was released in 2004, I wasn't really that interested in seeing it.  However, my curiosity got to me and I went and saw it on a Saturday matinee all by myself.

I loved it.  The director Zack Snyder took a boring film and made it better.  Yes, he added MTV-style editing, yes, he added Disturbed's "Down With The Sickness", yes he used washed-out color palettes.  And yes, these are all things I was complaining about earlier on making a horror movie "hip".  So call me a hypocrite, but to me...the original wasn't that great, so if you have to make a horror movie "hip", do it to a boring one.  Sometimes it works. 


And let's not forget, when you have bad acting in a horror movie, it can diminish it to the point where it doesn't matter how cool you think you've made it.  i.e. Exhibit #1: