Anyone else see Dawn of the Dead this weekend?

[vi5]

Thoughts? Were you a fan of the original?

I loved the original but I thought this one stacked up well. Just very stylishly done but not overbearingly so much so that it didn't seem like an MTV video.

I thought it kept enough humor but not to the point of distracting. There were some very cool shots. I liked a lot of the overhead camera stuff.

Much better than the Texas Chainsaw remake, and much less sadistic.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

1. I'm a fan of the original

I thought this was a good movie. The biggest problem I had with the remake is that it really didn't sustain the tension of the situation well. It was more like an action movie than a horror movie. I didn't feel scared enough by it. You're right that it's better than the TCM remake, which I didn't think was all that horrible either. Both originals were superior though.

<spoilers below>




One last thing - I wish they went further into the baby zombie sub-plot. That could've been exceedingly interesting to see the dude try to raise and protect the kid further than he did.

[vi5]

2. See my criticism of the original...

Has always been the excessive lag period where there is no action, where you see the 3 survivors just hanging out and doing things. It's not bad but it did drag on a little. I was glad this avoided it by too much.

I agree about the baby sub-plot. It could have been fleshed out a little more and added a whole other level of tension.

[skypilot]

3. Didn't care for the remake that much.

It zipped along to fast and I started losing track of the characters. Right from the start I could sense that the movie wouldn't involve me on any emotional level. As much as I love Sarah Polley, she just didn't impress upon me that she was a wife and mother who'd just lost her husband and daughter. There was that one scene where she wept for a few seconds before being interrupted but that was about it. I also didn't like the fact that they "explained" how people were infected. Apparently, the recently deceased would only be reanimated if they'd been killed by another zombie. That took something away from the movie in my opinion. I liked the fact that the first "Dawn of the Dead" moved slowly in parts because it was during those parts that the absurdities of our consumerist culture were thrown into relief. There was simply nothing in the remake that engaged me on any other level so that all the running around and shooting just became numbing and boring after a while. Wait for the video.

[vi5]

5. On the one hand I can see that...on the other hand...

..it's a horror movie. I really didn't go into it expecting to be "engaged" in the characters lives. I haven't seen the original in a while but I don't really remember a lot of back story to the characters. Didn't that one just pretty much just start with them in that situation?

I can see your criticisms, I guess we were just looking for different things.

Also, that girl in the beginning wasn't her daughter it was her neighbor. The kid she saw rollerblading in the beginning.

[skypilot]

6. Daughter or neighbor?

Are you sure? Was that man not her husband? Was he just a boyfriend and the girl was HIS daughter? I'm confused. I thought that he and Sarah Polley were a married couple. See, the movie just zipped by to quickly to make this clear to me. Anyway...yes, I agree, you and I are looking at the movie differently. I do expect to be engaged with the characters on some emotional level otherwise they are just so many human bowling pins waiting to be knocked over and I don't feel much horror at all. Just like with this new "DOTD" seeing them get whacked just becomes numbing.

[vi5]

9. That was her husband, but the girl was her neighbor....

...she mentioned her name when she was pulling in from work, and the girl called her Anna not mom. Then when she and her husband were sleeping he woke up and called her by the same name.

[skypilot]

11. Wait, this still isn't making sense to me.

If that was his neighbor and not his daughter it seems to me that he would have been a lot more startled to wake up and find her in his house. He even went to hug her.

[vi5]

12. My impression was...

That it was just one of those friendly neighborhoods where everyone knew everyone else. When he woke up to see her standing there, he saw that her face looked completely messed up and that is why he went over to her.

I think we're reading too much into this though. It's just a horror movie.

[skypilot]

13. Believe me...

...I'm not trying to read anything into the movie. I'm just trying to figure out who was who and what was what. Like I said in my original post the movie just zipped along to the point where I lost track of the characters. That's not a good thing.

[vi5]

14. Yeah, I'll agree with that...

And I didn't like that they added a bunch of characters mid way through. I thought that made things worse.

Overall though it exceeded my expectations I would say.

[soleft]

4. I ended up watching 28 Days Later instead

[Fenris]

7. I liked it better the first time I saw it when it was called "The Passion"

:evilgrin:

[rbnyc]

8. Wah! Wah! I was too sick!

I was going to go on opening night and I was too sick to go out. (I'm still too sick to go out.) I hope to see it this weekend.

[Khephra]

10. Same here

I threw my back out and had to spend most of the weekend in bed.

[rbnyc]

16. Bummer!

I had a chest cold that's turned into something evil. My OB wants to see me today. I feel yucky!

So sorry about your back. I hope we're both better and at the movies in a few days.

[DonP]

15. Liked the original and this remake

I agree that this version ran a whole lot more like an action movie and the original was a whole lot more philisophical. They spent a lot of dialog in the original trying to figure out why everyone kept coming to the mall etc.

After seeing both this weekend (I rented the original for the heck of it) I came to one conclusion. None of us probably have enough guns or ammunition available.

[m-jean03]

17. Was anyone really

scared? I want to be really scared.

[fudge stripe cookays]

18. I saw the first 10 minutes on cable and I jumped multiple feet

several times just in 10 minutes. I want to see the rest of it!

[vi5]

19. There are more than enough jumpy moments....

...and tense moments. Depends on what scares you. There are several great scary/creepy/fingernails clenched to the armrest moments I thought. And i watch on average of 3 horror movies a week.

[qb]

20. A good tense thriller

The "zombies on speed" was a nice touch (sprinting after their prey instead of stumbling). Their screams were particularly unsettling.