Dawn Of The Dead – Unrated Director’s Cut (2004 remake/HD-DVD)

 

Picture: B     Sound: B+     Extras: D     Film: D

 

 

Though it does not get the credit it deserves, George Romero’s original Dawn Of The Dead just continues to look better and better, a classic sequel and a rare one that only adds to the greatness of the first film.  Now that 300 (reviewed a few times on this site) is a big hit, Universal has issued Zack Snyder’s 2004 Dawn Of The Dead remake in its Unrated Director’s Cut on HD-DVD.  One of the first films to sadly encourage remakes of Horror genre classics, often for ideological sinister reasons, it looks and plays much worse than when first seen upon its unfortunate arrival.  When reviewing an expanded version of the 1978 classic, I said this:

 

“The first odd discourse is over the idea of doing the remake, which had not been issued at the time of the taping.  He spends more time than usual trying to justify the remake and tries his best to spin it into a good idea and good “bet” for fans in particular, but it is a package deal any way you cut it and this never works.  He should not have bothered.  This is then a problem when [producer Richard P. Rubenstein] comments on copyrights and stealing intellectual property.  He talks about the integrity of original ideas and why websites and fans should not think because they are fans, they own something by default through admiration and devotion.  That is true, but by allowing a remake of the original, does that not demean and disrespect that work as much?  Recycling something so beloved and especially so recent does tend to show a lack of care and even brings up the very ethics issues that plague copyright protection today.  If even independent film producers like Rubenstein cannot leave certain things alone, how can he expect everyone else to?”

 

It is sad just how prophetic that was.  Though Snyder somehow managed to move on to 300, he has only shown to himself to be good at making other people’s work come to life in satisfactory ways.  It is amazing just how rough and sloppy this remake is, more evident now that 300 has been out for a while.  Directors do need to learn their craft, but when they start out so shaky, must we suffer the early results as a result?

 

Without the first film to back it (the Tom Savini remake of Night Of The Living Dead is never noted), this remake has a virus as its excuse for the rise of flesh-eating zombies, making it less suspenseful and more pseudo Science Fiction.  Adding a bunch of obvious, badly edited gore and actors like Mekhi Phifer, Jake Weber, Ving Rhames and Sarah Polley cannot save this mess from its horrid James Gunn screenplay.  Gunn, the former Troma writer responsible for the live-action theatrical disembowelments of Scooby Doo that are more terrifying (especially with Freddie Prinze, Jr.) than any gore in this film, is a genre-specific hack who got lucky.  The failure of Slither (see my HD-DVD review elsewhere on this site) hopefully means his time is running out.

 

Speaking of which, why do the zombies run fast, hard and angry here?  Did they eat the Energizer Bunny or is this just a desperate move to replace imagination, originality and an admission of no sense of creating suspense with more reasons to do fast edits and pump the sound into self-satire.  Even with its problems, Romero’s Land Of The Dead (see my HD-DVD review) was far superior to this mess and the makers are way out of their depth.  Too bad this is still a curio that did some business, because it is a train wreck.

 

The 1080p VC-1 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image is as grainy, color-manipulated to no point, flatly lit and idiotically unmemorable as in its first release, as shot in cheap Super 35mm by Matthew P. Leonetti, A.S.C., whose work in this genre for films like Species II and Jagged Edge is far superior to what he was lowered to here.  Grain is noisier than it should be, but Snyder likely thought this was some sort of style.  The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix is the only saving grace on this disc, annihilating the lame Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 mix that sounds a generation or two down.  Tyler Bates music is poor, while the mix has its moments, though it is often more generic in its feel despite it fidelity.  300 had a TrueHD 5.1 mix and that had far more character and better Bates music.

 

Extras include the silly “The Lost Tape: Andy's Terrifying Last Days Revealed” that we guess is some dumb Blair Witch-inspired thing, a “special report” if you care, “Undead Scenes” with commentary by Snyder and Producer Eric Newman, three featurettes “Raising The Dead, Attack Of The Living Dead, Splitting Headaches: Anatomy Of The Exploding Heads,” feature length commentary Snyder & Newman and an introduction by Snyder as if we needed one.  Sadly, the even more underrated Day Of The Dead is being remade and Bates will even score it.

 

Fortunately, the Romero originals are hitting Blu-ray and will hopefully reach an audience who knows how badly they have been scammed by these lame imitators.  This Dawn is Dead on arrival.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo