Thiel-a-Vision Review: Dawn of the Dead (1978) / Dawn of the Dead (2004)

/  1/2

Let's get it out of the way: Yes, I'm giving the remake a higher rating than the original. I watched the 1978 version again a few days prior to screening the new flick, and was surprised to find myself a bit less enthralled than I remembered. There's no denying the influence of the first Dawn of the Dead, but more than a quarter-century later, it's oddly quaint.

Both films use the same basic premise: a worldwide plague of zombiehood sends a small band of survivors into hiding within a deserted shopping mall. The original--which was a sequel to the seminal Night of the Living Dead--starts in the middle of the story, with civilization already in chaos and a handful of television news personnel hanging on to broadcast incoherent and generally useless information about the undead menace. Recognizing the futility of their situation, they escape via helicopter only to put down on the roof of the aforementioned mall.

Inside, they find virtually everything a modern American could want, guarded by an inconvenient horde of zombies who have flocked to the shopping center out of an alleged homing instinct buried deep within their formerly-human brains. One aspect that sets this film above similar titles is the none-too-subtle satire about consumerism: the zombies are us, shambling mindlessly around a shrine to greed to the tune of elevator music. Indeed, our heroes only fall to the oh-so-slow creeps when they put their attachment to material possessions ahead of their personal safety.

As much as I enjoyed this attempt to work on more than a simple kill-or-be-killed level, I have to admit that it doesn't sustain a nearly two-hour running time. The undead aren't that much of a threat aside from their sheer numbers, and the low budget means that most of them are just regular folks in blue pancake makeup. The worst moment comes when a group of invading bikers finds a stack of pies and begins smacking them in the faces of the hapless zombies. Okay, they eventually get their comeuppance by having their guts ripped out on camera, but I'm not convinced that the undead ever quite regain their dignity after being covered with cherry filling.

The remake ditches the satire, opting instead for a modern-day level of intensity. The opening ten minutes are superbly constructed, catapulting Sarah Polley's heroine from the security of her bedroom into full-fledged Armageddon. As shuffling zombies are simply unacceptable after 28 Days Later, these horrors throw themselves upon their victims at top speed, increasing the immediacy of the peril.

Banding together with a handful of others, she finds herself back at the mall. As with the original film, the survivors enjoy the creature comforts and the apparent safety of their environment, but unlike their counterparts, they realize that the haven is only temporary and they eventually concoct a plan to reach the marina and there perhaps to sail to an uninfested island.

Gone is the gut-munching of the '78 version, but there are some equally unsettling moments, including the birth of a zombie baby and a horrific death-by-chainsaw. The increased budget not only raises the level of acting, but also results in much-improved makeup effects. 

In some ways, this new Dawn of the Dead is even more nihilistic than its inspiration. While the first film ended with a vague possibility of salvation, in 2004 we find that there really is nowhere to run.

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