Dawn of the Dead (remake): unrated director's cut

The Film

Note: this is a slightly redrafted version of the review I originally wrote for the standard definition DVD release in 2004.

I'm probably one of the few people in horror fandom who doesn't regard George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978) as an unbridled classic. I appreciate its importance as a seminal piece of horror cinema, and indeed its biting and quite excellently realised commentary on contemporary society, but I have never been as wild about it as its more ardent followers. As such, rest assured that my criticisms of this remake stem not from the automatic "defence mechanism" that I suspect was triggered in a number of the original film's most dedicated fans, but rather from issues that I have with this film in its own right. In any event, the fact that the remake is sufficiently different from the original for the only concrete connections to be the title, the undead and the fact that the main characters hole up in a shopping mall, suggests that it should be accepted on its own merits as a movie that is only loosely inspired by Romero's film.

Milwaukee A&E nurse Ana (Sarah Polley) awakens to find the world in the grip an unknown epidemic that turns the dead into crazed, blood-hungry zombies. After narrowly escaping from the jaws of her husband, who has fallen victim to the virus, Ana runs into fellow survivors Michael (Jake Weber), tough cop Kenneth (Ving Rhames) and a young couple, hot-headed Andre (Mekhi Phifer) and his pregnant girlfriend Luda (Inna Korobkina). Together they make their way to the relative safety of a nearby shopping mall - a mall guarded by an arrogant security guard, CJ (Michael Kelly), and his two deputies, who seem to be just as eager to put bullets in the skulls of the living as they do the undead. As the world is overrun by the epidemic and the zombies close in, the small band must fight for their survival.


What immediately becomes apparent is that this rendition of the story has all but excised the scathing critique of consumer society that was present in the original. Indeed, Romero could have written his version with this remake in mind, given its incredibly superficial sheen, with loud gun battles punctuated by montages set to licensed music, and characters who appear to have walked straight out of the horror stable of clichés. Initially, it seemed to me that director Zack Snyder had disposed of Dawn of the Dead's subtext entirely and at the same time played right into what Romero had been trying to say about society in the original. However, after watching it again, it strikes me that the social commentary is still present, but it is of a different nature and takes a back seat to the popcorn action. In Romero's film, the survivors were portrayed as being the human equivalent of a horde of insects: moving into an area and colonizing it, then moving on when its natural supplies were exhausted. Snyder's version shows its protagonists to be a lot more individual and indeed more selfish, each going in their own direction within the mall, with communication breaking down as they gloat over their own personal possessions and "territories". At the end of the day, it probably comes down to personal opinion as to which interpretation is more reflective of human nature.

It also becomes clear that writer James Gunn is going through the motions rather than looking to innovate. Lacking Romero's subversive sense of humour, the jokes are a lot more brazen and obvious. Some of the dialogue and reactions are actually very amusing, but by and large it seems like easy humour - canned laughter of the sitcom variety, generally relying on the dubious shock value of four letter words rather than genuine wit. Gunn comes from the Troma stable, and this is very much Troma comedy - in other words, not so much laugh out loud funny as "black humour in unpleasant situations" funny. The problems extend beyond the comedic aspects of the script, too, with an inconsistent pace and a bloated cast of ill-defined cardboard cut-outs. Whereas the original film essentially boiled down to four main characters, the remake is cluttered with individuals whose personalities are either extremely stereotypical or so ill-defined that they blend together. Furthermore, there is never any real sense of character development, with everyone seeming to come out of the experience as they went in, barring asshole mall cop CJ (Michael Kelly), who is the only character to undergo any sort of change as the movie progresses. I am also somewhat disappointed that Snyder and Gunn failed to include what was perhaps the original's most important element: a pie fight.

What saves the film is, primarily, the strength of the actors. Ving Rhames, Mekhi Phifer, Michael Kelly and Jake Weber all give strong performance, but the single biggest coup that lifts the whole film out of the pits of mediocrity is Sarah Polley, an actor about whom I have waxed lyrical on more than one occasion, and who is an avowed fan of Romero's original. Better known for her independent roles, she here takes on a role that could easily be accused of being beneath her and somehow manages to make it three-dimensional. One of Polley's greatest assets is her expressive face and, even when working with a script that is devoid of any nuance, she can distill the required emotions and use her vivid features to get the point across. She is, in my opinion, one of the strongest and most interesting actors in modern cinema, and if I were a complete snob I might say that she's too good for this movie. But I'm not, so I'll simply say that she gives a typically superb performance and that the filmmakers should thank their lucky stars she agreed to this gig, as it would have been a vastly weaker movie without her.


The film also benefits from a sprightly pace. It hits the ground rolling, with a pre-credits prologue that borders on the ridiculous but is fun and involving. The laughs do indeed come thick and fast, mixed in with explosions, squealing zombies and plenty of karo syrup. At times you may not know whether you're laughing at something genuinely amusing or just the whole stupidity of it all, but it does actually work. The pace is less consistent once the survivors reach the mall, since the tension lets off and we have to contend with the fact that the dialogue is clumsy, clichéd and overly expositional. At least partially making up for the poor script, however, is the film's look. While Matthew Leonetti's camerawork is fairly uninspired, the colour grading applied in post production is effective. Whereas the original version was shot in a very matter of fact manner, the remake presents the world of the undead as a very colourful place, with rich blues, greens and yellows and an extremely high contrast. Snyder also throws in some different shutter speeds during a mad dash to escape the mall during the final act, which gives the footage a very staccato-like motion. This is nothing new - in fact, Ridley Scott does it all the time, most notably in Gladiator's battle sequences - but it is definitely put to good use here. Finally, one more age-old horror movie cliché is put to good use: as the movie progresses, the film stock becomes grainier.

The Dawn of the Dead remake is an entertaining action movie with a better cast than most films of its kind, although it has neither the intelligence nor the delectable cheese of the original. It is, however, significantly different from its predecessor for it to be judged on its own merits, so crank up the volume, sit back and enjoy the carnage, and everyone drink a nice tall glass of shut the fuck up.

The Director's Cut

Left: US version (DVD and HD DVD); Right: international version (DVD)
(click to open larger image in new window)
The unrated director's cut presented on this disc includes some 9 minutes of material that was shorn from the R-rated theatrical cut - a combination of MPAA and studio interference, meaning that some of the gorier material was lost, but also a number of character moments. While the new footage doesn't really change the film in any significant manner - generally amounting to a handful of additional gore shots, a couple of extra dialogue scenes and an additional encounter with the undead when our intrepid band of survivors are making their way to the mall - its inclusion here is certainly appreciated, making the package feel slightly meatier overall.

Like the standard definition release of the director's cut, an odd anomaly is present in the form of digital blood that has been smeared on to a car window for a single shot during the pre-credits prologue to obscure the breasts of a naked zombie. For the standard definition release, only the US DVD was affected, with her breasts visible on all other releases of the director's cut (the shot is missing entirely from the R-rated theatrical version). As far as I am aware, this film has not yet been released in any other territories, so it remains to be seen whether or not this bizarre instance of optical censorship will be present in any non-American HD releases.

HD DVD Presentation

Dawn of the Dead was served very well by its standard definition incarnation, boasting a bold image with a reasonably pleasing level of detail but suffering from some edge enhancement. The same master appears to have been used for the 1080p VC1 encode on this HD DVD release, which rightfully constitutes a significant improvement in terms of detail, while maintaining similarly blown-out contrasts and rich, saturated colours. The whites and blacks are definitely being clipped, but this is faithful to the manner in which the image was manipulated during post production, and should not be counted as a fault. Some light filtering has been applied, which prevents the image from reaching the highest possible levels of detail, while scenes that have been re-inserted for the director's cut show a slight increase in ringing and print dirt, but all in all this is a solid transfer and one of the best I've seen from Universal's catalogue releases.

In terms of audio, the included Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1 track, which features a bit rate of 448 Kbps (unusual for Universal, who usually use a bit rate of 1.5 Mbps for their HD DVD releases), is probably the same track that was included on the standard definition release, and indeed to my ears sounds remarkably similar, while the TrueHD 5.1 track shows considerable improvements in terms of overall clarity, and also seems to make more aggressive use of the rears. As far as demo material is concerned, this is some of the very best I have heard on either format.

Optional English SDH and French subtitles are included for the film and all the extras apart from the commentaries.

Extras

As is the norm with their HD DVD catalogue releases, Universal have ported over all of the extras from the standard definition release, beginning with The Lost Tape, a 16-minute video diary featuring Andy (Bruce Bohne), the gun shop owner from the main feature, essentially showing his story in a more up close and personal manner. It proves to be elatively entertaining without being particularly interesting or revealing. A similar cinéma vérité style is used in the 21-minute Special Report: Zombie Invasion, which is essentially comprised of segments of mocked-up news broadcasts covering the outbreak of the zombie epidemic. While relatively entertaining, it does run for a bit too long and features some genuinely awful acting that I'd be hard-pressed to label as either intentional or accidental.

A collection of deleted scenes, called, appropriately enough, Undead Scenes, follow, provided with optional commentary by Snyder and producer Eric Newman. Generally they are extended or alternative riffs on scenes that remain in the movie, but a couple are completely new and feature some entertaining ad libbed conversations between Sarah Polley and Jake Weber.

Three short featurettes follow, including Splitting Headaches: Anatomy of Exploding Heads, a 6-minute piece focusing on various gore effects and how they were created; Attack of the Living Dead, 7-minute piece focusing on various specific zombies, discussing the creation of their personalities and make-up, and the execution of their stunts; and Raising the Dead, an 8-minute behind the scenes look at the process of creating zombie make-up. In lieu of a more general "making of" documentary, these featurettes provide a reasonably interesting but heavily practically-oriented look at the film's production.

Snyder and Newman return for a Feature Commentary, which, not unlike the film itself, is entertaining but ultimately fairly empty. All of the main bases are covered, including the actors, the make-up, the locations used and the process of adapting the script from Romero's original. However, a little too much time is spent praising all and sundry, emphasized especially by the end credits, where the duo do little more than read out various names and remark on how great they were.

Snyder shows up once more for a brief Introduction, which can be accessed from the menu or optionally played before the film starts. It turns out to be fairly redundant, with Snyder essentially saying that the new cut contains more gore and character moments and is more personal to him overall.

The now-obligatory "My Scenes" feature, which allows viewers to bookmark their favourite scenes, is also provided.

Overall

The HD DVD release of Dawn of the Dead is a definite improvement over the standard definition release, maintaining all of the original bonus features and boasting a solid transfer and audio mixes. Of course, the upcoming release of Romero's superior original version on Blu-ray is likely to put this release in the shade, at least in terms of the quality of the film itself, but those who enjoyed Snyder's reimagining are highly recommended to trade their DVD copies for this new release.