Dawn of the Dead

Review by Jason Gaston

When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth.

Never before and never since has there been a cooler tagline for a movie than 1978's Dawn of the Dead, George A. Romero's follow-up to the classic Night of the Living Dead. Well, Night of the Living Dead got a modern-day update - a rather questionable one by a lot of standards - and now it's Dawn of the Dead's turn. What's the verdict?

We'll get to that in a minute.

The story, in case you are completely unaware, is that life is good and peaceful, but all of the sudden, zombies are everywhere... overrunning cities all over the world. Soon, surviving humans find themselves scurrying for cover away from the undead hordes that prowl the city. One particular group finds themselves hiding out in a barricaded mall, but as the days pass and more and more zombies line up outside trying to get in, how long will they be able to hold out?

This is one intense horror movie. It's claustrophobic, unsettling, and tense as you get to identify with the characters struggling to survive in the middle of a sea of zombies. Granted, the ones who don't get proper characterization are the ones who inevitably end up the snack of the undead, but they aren't the important ones.

The ones who are important are Ana, an overworked nurse who narrowly survives getting attacked by a little girl zombie and then by her own boyfriend. There's Kenneth the police officer played by the always entertaining Ving Rahmes. Michael is the smooth talking and very likeable voice of reason, and Andre and his very pregnant wife being a whole new level of terror into the mix. Even Andy, this poor guy on a rooftop a couple of blocks away, gets some characterization. Heck, I actually felt the sorriest for him!

Simply put - aside from a few minor missteps such as making this movie extremely depressing in places - this is a great horror movie. It's action packed, tense, and scary. This is a remake that stands on its own legs; Well shot, well scripted, well acted, cliché breaking... this is probably one of the best looking zombie movies of all time.

There's lots of clever moments in this movie like a lounge version of "The Sickness" and several witty mall musak moments that accompany some scenes. There's also a few not-so-clever moments as well that make you route for certain stupid young girls to get eaten very painfully.

Still, this is a great movie and a worthy companion to the original. Dawn of the Dead is a scream! Don't get up when the credits roll after an apparently disappointing ending, because there is a lot more story to go with a very satisfying ending!