Day of the Dead

A Film by Steve Miner. Now let's begin there. I honestly like Steve Miner. He's directed Soul Man, Friday the 13th parts 2 and 3, as well as producing the original and The Last House on the Left. That's not a bad resume. That aside, he hasn't done anything worth noting in about 20 years+.

Screenplay is by Jeffrey Reddick who wrote all the Final Destination screenplays, so that can't be too bad right?

Let's talk casting.

Mena Suvari (American Beauty, Spun) Nick Cannon (Drumline) Michael Welch (Joan of Arcadia) AnnaLynne McCord (Made quite a splash on Nip/Tuck last year) Ian McNeice (HBO's Rome) Ving Rhames (Mission Impossible)

Altogether not a bad looking cast.

So that in mind, we start the film...

We begin our journey on a lighter note typical of the '80s slasher flicks, in an abandoned barn in Leadville, Colorado. Full of candles and horny teenagers, and there's nothing wrong with that. One couple decides to explore the rather creepy barn.

The movie actually starts out alright. Decent directing, acting, dialog if it keeps up like this, it might not be such a bad movie after all... but lets keep watching... where angels fear to tread...

First lets discuss spider monkey zombies. Now we have become so accustomed to Romero's slow moving zombies that the atmosphere has been set in stone for the standard, but I see nothing wrong with trying new things in horror, in fact I long for it. Now this isn't the first time fast moving zombies have been done, but it was probably the best explained of the type out of the ones I've seen.

The first few kills are fantastic, and holy the zombies were pretty scary, and in all honesty I haven't been scared of a zombie in a long time.

But the show must go on, even if it goes on like spider monkey zombies on crack.

If you want this to be just like the original, go watch the original. I have yet to read one decent complaint about the movie.

The faces decaying rapidly through the change was really unique, I don't think I've ever seen that used before so I thought that was pretty cool.

I actually enjoyed the movie for what it was. It had good pacing, took liberties, and took zombies into a new direction which is pretty hard to do these days. I've seen a lot worse. A whole lot worse.

I love how the people who can't let go of the idea of walking zombies thinks walking zombies is more realistic, like any kind of zombie can be realistic.

If this movie had not been called Day of the Dead I guarantee it would have been better received, because die hard fans expected it to stay true to Romero's zombie mythology which it did not do.

And though this was not adhering to Romero's preconceptions, it had a few things going for it. It brought it's own ideas to the table which worked. Such as the people going blank just before turning. As the last particle in the blood stream switched them on. I thought that was rather realistic, and a nice little piece of detail. The action was fairly non stop with good pacing. And in all honesty it was far more enjoyable than Diary of the Dead. A movie that turned out to be a huge disappointment, as was Argento's latest installment, "Mother of Tears". The two horror masters have taught a new generation well it seems.

Now not to downplay Romero, the original Night of the Living Dead is a classic that will likely never be topped. And the mood of the original Dawn of the Dead is intensely scary, but for a direct to video movie it was pretty good.

Now the idea of "When there's no room in hell, the dead will walk the earth", was never intended to be true. It is the religious reasoning to unreasonable things. But we also must conclude that there is a scientific explanation as well, and zombie movies these days attempt to take the genre in a direction of the more realistic explanation.

And it isn't specific to the horror genre either. We see how it worked for Ang Lee's Hulk and Nolan's Batman, we must be able to appreciate it here as well.

For all the differences between this and Romero, the one that stands out the most in my mind is the lack of political and philosophical importance which Romero is famous for including in his films. And while I respect that in a film, though this remake lacked that angle entirely, it was at least enjoyable.

I saw the screening for Day of the Dead in LA in September... I wanted my money back, but i didn't even pay for the movie.

Cardboard acting, completely ridiculous character traits that defy all sense of realism (Marines do NOT act like that, ever), and very odd casting that didn't work out (Mena Suvari and Nick Cannon? Come on). Also, there was definitely no style to this movie at all! Dawn of the Dead had style, Grindhouse (although not a Zombie flick, but of a similar genre-style) was greatly stylized, Sin City was exciting visually as well, but this movie could have been shot in daylight outside of LA over a weekend. It had no "Feel" to it. I love Zombie movies (James Gunn's Dawn of the Dead, awesome), but this one was true Hollywood schlock and a big disappointment.

Who ever thought a ZOMBIE movie could be Boring?

If you're a fan of Romero style zombies then there's a good chance you wont enjoy this. If you prefer the more 'active' style of zombies then perhaps you will discover a gem in this film.

Its not great by any standards but it does have a few surprises in store. Don't expect too much and I doubt you will be disappointed.

I believe this film was made for TV (could be wrong) and in that respect its not a bad effort. Better than some I've paid to see for sure. In fact I have to say that I preferred it to Land Of The Dead.

Don't pay to watch this film but by all means catch it when it airs on TV - assuming you don't have anything better to do! 5 out of 10 for effort

What's with the running? And now with the jumping and wall crawling? Okay so everyone says it's bad, but it's not that bad. It's just a zombie movie. I laughed a couple of times, and rolled my eyes a couple of times. Wasn't really scared though. There's no real looming claustrophobic terror there. It's more like the shock violence of 28 days later and 28 weeks later, that mixed some Aliens knock off, and strangely enough Scary Movie. The zombie effects are OK, bit like an episode of Buffy, and then there's the film effects like the beginning of Dawn of the Dead. It's no way as good as the new Dawn of the Dead, and is a bit of a let down, but it's just a zombie movie. It's strait to DVD, but I'd wait for the sales.

Not so much a remake of the Classic George A Romero film but a re-imagining. In this world the zombies are like superheroes, leaping from great heights, running super fast even crawling on the ceiling it's a far cry from the origins of the brain dead and a move towards the quick shock pace of recent films like '28 weeks later' or 'Flight of the living Dead'. The trouble is that with so many zombie movies about there's nothing here that hasn't been seen before in one film or another. The characters are stereotypes, the dialogue is stilted and the effects aren't always that good, but I'm a sucker for any zombie movie so if like me you can overlook that then this is certainly worth a watch. The gore level is high, its got Ving Rhames in it (for a bit) and the lead is played by Mena Suvari who is pretty enough and spends the film looking great in army fatigues while kicking butt. It is pretty text book despite the director trying some camera tricks to add to the atmosphere and the spooky tunes and it travels along at a fair old pace but when all is said and done this isn't a great film, it won't win any Oscars, but it does do what it says on the tin. Blood, guts and gory it will do until George's new one 'Diary of the dead'.