Dawn of the Dead (2004)

A nurse, a policeman, a young married couple, a salesman, and other survivors of a worldwide plague that is producing aggressive, flesh-eating zombies, take refuge in a mega Midwestern shopping mall.

Director:

Zack Snyder

Writers:

George A. Romero, James Gunn (screenplay)

Stars:

Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber

5 wins & 6 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Sarah Polley	...	Ana
Ving Rhames	...	Kenneth
Jake Weber	...	Michael
Mekhi Phifer	...	Andre
Ty Burrell	...	Steve
Michael Kelly	...	CJ
Kevin Zegers	...	Terry
Michael Barry	...	Bart
Lindy Booth	...	Nicole
Jayne Eastwood	...	Norma
Boyd Banks	...	Tucker
Inna Korobkina	...	Luda
R.D. Reid	...	Glen
Kim Poirier	...	Monica
Matt Frewer	...	Frank

Storyline

Ana, a young beautiful nurse finishes her day-shift at the hospital to return home to her beloved husband, they make love and sleep together. The next day, after her husband is killed by her neighbor next door, he suddenly comes back to life. She discovers the chaos happening in her neighborhood and escapes from her home. Soon after coming to her senses in the woods, she encounters a cop and other survivors, they decide to find safety in a mall. Soon more survivors come, and they learn that if they want to stay alive, they should stick together as the world is overrun by an army of undead. Can they survive the horror in this horrific global chaos? When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth

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Plot Keywords:

mall | nurse | zombie | infection | blood | 

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Taglines:

When the undead rise, civilization will fall.

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Genres:

Action | Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for pervasive strong horror violence and gore, language and sexuality

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Universal [United States]

Country:

USA Canada Japan France

Language:

English

Release Date:

19 March 2004 (USA)

Also Known As:

Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead

Filming Locations:

Ashbridge's Bay, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Box Office

Budget:

$28,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$108,275 (South Africa) (23 July 2004)

Gross:

$108,275 (South Africa) (23 July 2004)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Strike Entertainment, New Amsterdam Entertainment, Metropolitan Filmexport

Technical Specs

Runtime:

101 min 110 min (unrated director's cut)

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The cause of the dead returning to life is not completely explained in the film. On the back of the DVD box, it is said to be a virus.

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Goofs

When Ana is escaping in the car and driving on the long street, we see a van crash into another car and throw it off the street before it explodes; though he should have been visible through the gaps between the houses, the van appears as if from nowhere at a very high speed, making it clear that he was digitally built in.

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Quotes

The County Sheriff: We gotta burn... Danny! Danny! Put another round in that woman over there! Look, she's a twitcher.
[to the reporter]
The County Sheriff: I keep telling my men to shot those things in the head. Head... dead. Anyplace else, those things just twitch. Boy, we sure got a lot of them today. What's troubling is that I know some of these people were putting down. What can you do? It's got to be done.

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Crazy Credits

During the closing credits we see a series of shots filmed by the survivors using a camcorder they find on Steve's boat. There are a couple of scenes of Steve and his girlfriend (still left on the camera), then the survivors finding a small boat with a still-animated zombie head in an icebox, and finally them running out of gas and landing on an island where they are attacked by zombies. There are then a series of brief almost-subliminal flashes of zombies "attacking" the camera.

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Connections

Referenced in The Remake (2006)

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Soundtracks

"What The World Needs Now Is Love"
Written by Burt Bacharach & Hal David
Performed by Tree Adams

User Reviews

Action rather than horror, but worthy remake

As a HUGE fan of the original Dawn of the Dead I was very skeptical of this remake. I wasn't expecting an Academy Award winning blockbuster or anything, but I did want to see the remake do the original justice. I was impressed with the filming more than anything. This is an action movie rather than horror. The outdoor scenes are filmed with a grainy, hand-held camera which gave the audience the feeling of being disoriented much the same way the characters would have felt. The movie was not made in the MTV-generation style that the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake was. Dawn of the Dead stuck to the same mythology of the first without giving it a complete reimagining. I could imagine the two movies co-existing, but in different parts of the world.

One of the key differences that I did like was the idea of the zombies running. This made them come across as more menacing rather than being the slow clunkers that are seen in the original trilogy. The idea of being able to walk right past them was abandoned. I also feel that the movie did a good job of showing how quickly people would turn on one another and watch out for themselves only.

One of my favorite "realisms" of the movie is how the characters are too attached to their loved ones to shot them when they become zombies. I'm certain that many of us would react in the same manner if something like this were to actually happen (yes, I know it's impossible). Also, it was interesting to have so many people make it to the mall instead of only four as in the original. Of course some of these characters fit the generic stereotype of a movie such as this, but I'm not surprised considering modern audiences would need such characters to maintain their interest. This was a movie made for film viewers, not film makers. We have the strong and silent male hero, the quick-thinking blond heroine, the official dumb jerk, the official slut, the young and naive girl who loses everything and needs the group's protection, the angry challenger for group leadership who has a change of heart and becomes heroic, the young trainee who disagrees with the angry challenger yet follows due to a sense of duty, and the stupid follower who gets his comeuppence.

One aspect that was missing from this remake was the original movie's social commentary on the commercialism of people. Ken Foree's character of Peter mentioned this in the original whereas Ving Rhames' Kenneth was more of a silent action hero never having much to say. This was another reason that I saw this as a simple action movie -- though I will say that Rhames has more acting ability than Governor Schwarzenegger, Sly, Seagal and Van Damme combined. Rhames also LOOKS like an action hero rather than today's prettyboy "action heroes" such as Tom Cruise, Ben Affleck, Nicolas Cage and Keanu Reeves -- who all look like they couldn't fight their way out of a cooking class for senior citizens.

All in all this movie was not better than the original and won't be nominated for any Academy Awards, but if you're looking for entertainment and can stomach the blood it's worth checking out. I can't wait to buy it on DVD someday.