Day of the Dead

Remake of George Romero's original "Day of the Dead (1985)"… no way! How could you. Well I'll admit, I didn't mind Steve Miner's superfluously clichéd straight-to-DVD b-grade take, but it's far from a traditional scene by scene/scenario remake with the film only sharing the same title (even though most of the zombie action centres around night time), featuring zombies (who bestow very impressive psychical abilities like sprinting, leaping and thinking) and having a character named Captain Rhodes (played by the commanding Ving Rhames in nothing more than a support role). Really that's it, but also shares some common similarities to Romero's 1973 'The Crazies' (which a remake is on the horizon), as it features the US army posting-guard in a virus-infected small town turning the locals into blood crazy zombies. I don't seem to share much of the hate towards it (maybe hearing a lot bad things before hand to work in my favour as I didn't have expectations for it), although I agree it does have some dumb plot devices (mainly centring that of certain zombie soldier, but is it any worse than the 'Bub' creation in the original film?), but despite that and its formulaic patterns. I remained easily engrossed.

The talented Meni Suvari is agreeably sincere in the central role, but does feel a little miss-cast. Her turn is better than what the stereotypically thin material (and there's no social commentary here) and lazy script ("It's complicated") offers up. The performances are mediocre at best, but some do standout more than others like Nick Cannon as a macho gun-tooting soldier with a smart attitude, Stark Sands as the clumsy private and Ian McNeice as the town's radio DJ. As for Ving Rhames, he's wasted in what ends up as a nothing part for such an infamous character.

Director Steve Miner's orthodox, if tight handling is broken up by kinetic editing; flash camera tilts that keep on the move and jerky action placement (where surprisingly random stages manage to hold a certain amount of chaotic tension). At least the story gets right into it and at only 80 minutes it doesn't seem to sag much… well towards the end its persistent style wears thin and the ending was feebly done. Now the blood-soaked gore… naming its self under day wasn't good. While having moments of bloody carnage and some decent make-up FX, it's rather watered-down with over-the-top CGI taking over the show. The CGI wasn't bad, but it's no substitute for latex.

Sure it doesn't come close to the 'Dead' franchise (and as it stands it better off as a stand-alone), but for cheap, quick brainless entertainment it's adequately done.

Zombie movies are more popular than ever since the beginning of the new Millennium, and we particularly notice an undeniable revival of George A. Romero's legendary trilogy of the dead. The Man himself released two more genuine sequels to his own franchise ("Land of the Dead" and "Diary of the Dead", which can't live up to the older movies but are still very much worth checking out) and no less than two of the three original classics already received modern makeovers. Actually, they aren't prototypic remakes to be honest. Zack Snyder added a lot of personalized style and ideas to his interpretation of "Dawn of the Dead" in 2004 and, well, to link this straight-to-video reworking of "Day of the Dead" to Romero's legacy would be blasphemous and a complete disgrace. This isn't a remake of the brilliant 80's milestone, but a mundane and inconspicuous splatter B-movie that simply needed an eye-catching gimmick in order not to dive into oblivion straight away. So what they did here was steal the title and borrow a couple of story elements from Romero's film (like the obedient zombie and the underground laboratory), but otherwise this is just a lame and uninspired zombie movie like there are thirteen in a dozen nowadays. Nearly the entire population of a small Colorado town overnight becomes infected with a hideous virus that causes their bodies to rapidly decompose and inflicts an insatiable hunger for human flesh. The army is called in and young soldier Sarah Bowman, who's from around the area, discovers a link with scientific experiments that took place in an abandoned factory nearby. There's absolutely nothing original about "Day of the Dead", unless you consider a vegetarian zombie to be innovative. To me, that was simply the most ridiculous and embarrassing moment of the entire movie. The CGI-effects look horrible and this is yet another film that doesn't comprehend that zombies need to move slowly in order to look menacing! The rotting cadavers here run faster than African athletes and, for some reason, they can even walk upside down on the ceiling! I mean, were they actually trying to make the movie look stupid? Just trying to imagine Mena Suvari as a hard-boiled and stern army girl is already impossible and, even though his name parades on the DVD-cover in thick bold letters, Ving Rhames' role as Captain Rhodes is hardly more than a cameo. That was perhaps the biggest disappointment of all, since the Captain Rhodes character of the original movie is one of the notorious "bad guys" in the history of horror. This is by far the worst thing Steve Miner ever got associated with. Otherwise he's the respectable director of several modest competent horror movies, like "Friday the Thirteenth Parts 2 and 3", "Warlock", "House" and "Lake Placid".

Well, the only big mistake of that movie was to pretend to be the remake of a classic, when it was not. That must have disappointed and angered a lot of people.

Actually "Day of the Dead" is a highly entertaining Zombie-Flick that delivers everything one expects: good trash, gore, humor and well-known main-actors who act, well, lets say "okay"...

The story is not really important, as we saw it dozens of times (Virus, Transformation, Out of Control, group trying to escape,....and so on) and there were elements of "Resident Evil" and "28 Days/Weeks later" as the "life to death transformed" corpses behave the same hysterical way as the sickos from London, only that Americans must be way much hungrier as these zombies are feeding on flesh. And how....

Anyway: "Day of the Dead" was fun, a little thrilling, entertaining and better than a lot of other genre-movies BUT somebody in the marketing-department blew it up by having the idea to sell it as a "Romero Remake".

Some Zombie should bite this person....

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

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'.