Dawn of the Dead

A New Dawn
by Ed Owens

The Gospels tell of Christ's healing of the lepers, a colony afflicted with a disease of the flesh that probably resembled today's vision of the walking dead. Who'd have thought the two would square off again nearly 2000 years later, not in the dusty streets of Jerusalem, but in the local multiplex? Dawn of the Dead, first time director Zack Snyder's audacious remake of Romero's near-classic sequel opened this weekend in the face of stiff competition from Gibson's box-office juggernaut, and though a comparison is hardly necessary (or even prudent), I have to say that Snyder's post-apocalyptic nightmare is, if not the better movie, at the very least more fun--think of it as getting all of the gore with none of the guilt.

Remaking Romero's viciously incisive horror-satire Dawn of the Dead would seem a daunting task. Though not given the same classic status as its predecessor (1969's eerily sparse Night of the Living Dead), the sequel is generally given a great deal of credit for bringing brains to the genre, both literally and figuratively. With razor-sharp wit and surgical precision (not to mention a surgical amount of blood and gore), Romero operated on such diverse topics as mindless consumerism and abortion with equal dexterity. If there is a drawback, it's that the film hasn't aged well. Tame by today's higher standards of violence and dated by almost any standard, Romero's Dawn of the Dead can't help but lag in places, and parts of it feel more obligatory than inspired. Perhaps that's why the press materials have adopted Tim Burton's Apes ploy of labeling Dead a "re-imagining" rather than a remake. Either way, first-time director Zack Snyder's take on zombie culture boils down to one hell of a good ride.

The film wastes no time in setting the tone, establishing both its horrific nightmare of a world gone awry and a deliriously twisted sense of humor with a bang-up opening, one that moves from a scene of surprising tenderness to one of a waking nightmare in the literal tick of a bedside alarm clock. Ana (Sarah Polley) wakes one morning to find her husband being attacked by the same neighborhood child she had seen skating the night before. When he passes away, only to awaken moments later a new man, she flees the house and races through the Guatemalan Insanity Pepper-style vision of her once idyllic suburb. Eventually she meets up with Officer Kenneth (Ving Rhames) and other survivors as they head to the local mall.

Most of the film centers on the group's time in their own private Alamo (a pool full of strangers with the added bonus of a boutique coffee bar named "Hallowed Grounds"). While the original film played humans against humans as much as against zombies, the battle lines are more clearly drawn here, though writer James Gunn, the infamous scribe of Tromeo & Juliet, feints at such heady ruminations with the character of CJ (Michael Kelly), the Napoleonic head of a trio of mall rent-a-cops who continue to take their job a little too seriously in spite of recent world events. If the group contains a few too many stereotypes, the group's dynamics are interestingly developed, albeit just enough to let the audience breathe between bloody set pieces (particularly interesting is the relationship between Rhames' flat-foot ex-marine and isolated gun shop owner Andy). What Gunn's script does accomplish is a well-balanced sense of comic timing, making the remake chuckle-out-loud funnier than the original, even if it is less cutting. Snyder's brisk pacing never allows the relationships to resonate in ways they easily could have, but what's there is largely compelling.

What ultimately tests the film's (and the audiences) mettle are the set pieces, and Snyder delivers more than a few winners: an overhead shot of a high-speed collision is jarring in its suddenness, while a terrifying family moment gives new meaning to the term dysfunctional. For all the horrific beauty of scenes that depict zombies as toppling dominos after a massive explosion, there are scenes of gritty, visceral power, like a particularly nasty bit of business with a chainsaw that made even this jaded movie-goer cringe; all with nary a hint of the uber-hip post-modern irony that has all but ruined the horror genre.

While few, if any, will leave the theater uplifted or a better person, it's hard not to have a good time, especially given the genre's comatose state for nearly a decade. Dawn is exactly that, a return to the balls-out, anything goes shock-fests of the 70s and 80s that made many of us fall in love with the genre in the first place.