There are so many just God-awful, shitty zombie movies out there that the entire genre has become a running joke. Check out Netflix if you want to watch an example of how truly terrible and cliché a movie can be. Now that statement may make you think that I don't like zombie movies.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
When a zombie movie is done right, it's a thing of true beauty. Romero introduced the zombie flick to shine light on how disgusting and base human beings can be. When those truths are at the foundation of the movie, nothing is better than a quality zombie flick.
Romero introduced the zombie formula in Night of the Living Dead, but he perfected the formula in his version of Dawn of the Dead. Similar movie to the remake, although not the exact same story; it still takes place in a shopping mall and involves a group of survivors of a zombie apocalypse, but it also holds the distinction of having the WORST zombie make-up of all time. Green faces, my ass!
Fast forward to 2004's version of Dawn of the Dead. 28 Days Later introduced the innovative idea of "the fast zombie," something that revitalized the zombie genre. It was the perfect innovation for the new millennium where everything had to be bigger, better, and faster. Fast zombies. It seems like such a simple idea now, but at the time it really was something that totally transformed the genre. Now a single zombie became a threat whereas before a solo zombie was a joke. It just made the stakes that much higher.
Even now nearly ten years later, Dawn of the Dead is a terrifying and blood-soaked movie that holds absolutely nothing back. It opens with a zombie child taking down a grown man and then it's just a sprint to the finish from there. It even answers the question of what happens if a pregnant woman gets bitten by a zombie (Awesome scene, by the way).
Everything else is very routine by today's standards. We have a diverse group of survivors (including a jacked up Ving Rhames and the dad from Modern Family) all meeting up at a shopping mall as they attempt to survive a zombie apocalypse. The other humans become the main obstacle to survival. Ridiculous reasons to leave the safety of the shopping mall arise. People make poor decisions that get them killed. But it's all done in such a fun and gory style, and there is certainly some creative stuff thrown in along the way. The "Hollywood Squares" game that is played by the dude at the gun shop and the other survivors is still one of my all-time favorite horror movie scenes. Oh, and that ending? How great is that ending? What better statement about mankind than to have everyone die in the end?
Does the movie make the same powerful statement about humanity that Romero's zombie movies made? No. But goddamn it's a fun movie.
In today's film industry, it seems like everything's been done before, but sometimes all it takes is a small (or at least smart) innovation to turn something that had become cliché into something that feels fresh and exciting. For me, Dawn of the Dead represents that film that brought the pure zombie creature feature back from the dead...ha!
Why It's Awesome:
Two words: zombie baby.
Best Quote:
Michael: So what's the plan?
C.J.: The plan is you drink a nice tall glass of shut the fuck up.
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