The Cleaning Power of Dawn

I got a chance to see the new version of Dawn of the Dead. I gotta say up front that it certainly wasn't what I was expecting. Not totally anyway.

For the last week I've see reviews stating things like "it's a great update, just like the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre," and "It's great, just don't try comparing it to the original." Now, I wasn't really impressed with the remake of TCM so that's not a glowing review for me. Worse though was saying you shouldn't compare the flick to the original. I dunno about any of you, but I can't help but compare the new one to the original. If it wasn't supposed to be compared, it shouldn't have been called Dawn of the Dead. Simple.

But that's a side rant really, cause I do feel the new flick is fairly worthy of the Dawn of the Dead moniker. It's a remake, and can justifiably be compared to the original, which I will do. As a warning, consider this entire rant rife with at least minor spoilers, if not major ones.

In the original, we're introduced to a world already in turmoil over the recent bout of hordes of zombies. This makes sense, since the original Dawn was a sequel to Night of the Living Dead. Different characters from the first flick, but the same world, further along the spiral of zombie destruction and chaos. Our heroes, two cops, a helicopter pilot, and a pregnant reporter, are escaping the city they live it for a quieter place, since it seems likely the world won't recover and they wanna get as far away from the hordes of undead people as they can.

Their journey takes them to a deserted mall... well, deserted except for the zombies inside. They get creative, close up the mall, and kill the dead people inside it, making a decent home for themselves for a spell. Eventually a gang of raiders rolls through, destroys the people's security, and ruins the home they made. What few of them remain escape the mall to try and find somewhere else to live, although their chances by now are much bleaker than before.

With the new one, the chaos hasn't yet started when we join our heroine, who's a non-pregnant nurse this time around. Over night though, the world falls to ruins. Her boyfriend is eaten by the neighbor's child... and then he tries to eat our heroine. She escapes, see much carnage, and joins up with a cop and some civilians. They all head to the mall (cause that's where I always go when zombies are ransacking my neighborhood) for safety. There, they meet up with a bunch more characters, have a lovely tea party, learn about the plague of the dead and how it spreads, escape from the mall, and get to a boat in the harbor so they can make it to an island and possibly live out their days there. The ending is actually bleaker than the original, and while it takes place on a boat, not a helicopter, thats not a major quibble.

The major difference between the two movies is simply the body count. More characters mean more people that can possibly die. This helps to give the whole movie a more visceral feel than the original (although the first was much more gory on certain counts than the new one). Surprisingly, for a horror movie with as many characters as it has, most of the characters get some decent development, making them all feel real and not just idiot cookie cutter characters.

I will mention my major gripe over the fact that as a zombie purist I will always appreciate the slower moving zombies to the 28 Days Later super fast zombies. While these critters in the new DotD are not slow like their original movie cousins, they aren't super fast like in 28DL. I still think they were a little too fast, but eh, a minor quibble.

And while you aren't given as much time to study the characters and think as in the original movie, it's not totally a bad. You get a good, adrenaline rush movie, with plenty of drama, action, and humor. On the whole, a decent flick.

So yeah, go see it, but appreciate it both for its differences as for the similarities... and then watch the original as well. Both are solid, if decently different, flicks.