Perhaps it is fitting that no other genre eats its own as
willingly as the horror scene. A remake of Citizen Kane is
blasphemous to mainstream Hollywood, but Psycho was placed in the
hands of a director whose resume included Hanson music videos. The
’90s were dominated by smartaleck slashers who lampooned the past
rather than innovating in the present. Thankfully, cult is cool
again. Although inferior to the original, The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre cut a nostalgic swath through horror’s splatterfest roots,
and fans embraced it. Dawn of the Dead is another “reimagining” of
a ’70s classic, and a fine one indeed. Resurrected for a new
generation, Dawn is an experience that should not be missed.

George Romero’s original Dead trilogy is horror’s equivalent to
The Lord of the Rings. In 1968’s Night of the Living Dead
(faithfully remade in 1990), a group of strangers gathered in a
desolate farmhouse to fend off a horde of starving undead. By Dawn
of the Dead, this isolated incident has become an apocalyptic
plague, and entire cities are slaughtered by the zombie menace. A
band of survivors finds sanctuary inside an abandoned shopping mall
and must cooperate to escape the infested city.

Unlike the 1978 original, James Gunn’s screenplay removes the
biker villains from the plot. The mall’s security guards provide a
brief glimpse into the predecessor’s good-versus-evil human
dynamic, but they are soon swept aside for the more direct
confrontation with the undead. Romero’s juxtaposition of mindless
consumerism and mindless cannibalism are also lost in the
transition. Ironically, these excisions make the new Dawn resemble
a Resident Evil videogame even more than its own film adaptation
did.

Apart from these relatively minor quibbles, Zack Snyder’s
directorial debut faithfully honors the zombie canon while
modernizing it for the 21st century. Rather than moan and shuffle
their way across the screen, Snyder’s zombies viciously snarl as
they run down their prey. The undead decathletes significantly
affect Dawn’s pacing.

Where the original film chilled through brooding terror, Snyder
terrifies via a series of close calls and tense action scenes, in
the vein of Aliens.

Dawn of the Dead is a welcome return to childhood nights spent
flipping through the pages of Fangoria magazine.

As an action-horror flick with cult leanings, Dawn of the Dead
delivers in every way… unless you’re looking for the next Whale
Rider-esque sob story.