Dawn of the Dead

Dawn of the Dead

03.26.04 (10:20 am)   [edit]
was . . . disappointing. Probably because I had gotten myself so psyched up about seeing it. :?

I am such a fan of George Romero's original trilogy - hopefully soon to be a quartet since the successes of 28 Days Later and this version of Dawn of the Dead.

What made them so good was the fact that they were actually character studies. The audience learned about the people and could sympathize with them because they were normal human beings put into an insane situation. In the Romero films, whether due to budget constraints or plan, the casts were kept small. That tighter focus allowed each survivor to have their moment in the camera's eye - to become real (and plausible) to the viewer.

The zombies were a slow moving, relentless force of nature that forced the characters to act in ways that were at times inimical to their normal modes of behavior and also at times brought forward other better aspects of their characters. The survivors were forced to discard many of their prejudices and preconceptions, bonding together for the common good. Those who were selfish in the face of disaster, perished . . . violently.

The zombies in the original films provided a chance for social commentary. The redneck zombie-killing party; the mall-walking corpses from our consumer society; the empathetic "Bob" and the soldiers from Day of the Dead, all forced the audience to think about who and what was "evil" in the films.

This new version jettisons nearly all of that depth for a torrent of gore. There are now 20 or so (it actually got hard to keep track of how many survivors there were) characters in the film, where the original had 4. Many of the new characters are seemingly introduced only to provide fodder for the zombies to attack and kill in, I have to admit, inventively gory situations, or for extremely underdeveloped subplots, or in one case, to provide a brief glimpse of T&A in a 5-10 second sex scene.

I do appreciate the nods to the original and the cameos by original cast members. :)

I guess my main problem with the film was that it [b]was[/b] such an unrelenting torrent of gore. There was no explanation of why or how the zombies kept "functioning," particularly at the rates of speed that they displayed. How can a decomposing corpse still run like an olympic athlete after several days/weeks. What ever happened to rigor mortis? I can certainly understand that a recently dispatched person could get up and move like they did when they were still alive, but after several days of dehydration wouldn't they at least move a bit slower? And the blood? Why wouldn't it coagulate after a relatively short time? At least in 28 Days Later and Romero's other non-zombie but similar film [b]The Crazies[/b], the "zombies" were more just infected humans that had been reduced to mindlessness. The original's stiff-legged weak assaults were much more "realistic" and "plausible" than the gallons of blood and gore from the speed demon assault engines portrayed here.

For a more realistic view of how a world affected by a zombie-plague would be, see my links on the left for the one to the online novel Autumn.

Okay, after re-reading this entry, I'm thinking that my zombie obsession might need psychiatric scrutiny? :wink:

Perhaps it's just that so many of the patrons I deal with seem to be more undead than alive? So sometimes it's not hard for me to imagine myself in a zombie film. :roll: