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Dawn of the Dead is a 2004 horror remake of George A. Romero's 1978 film of the same name. The remake and original both depict a handful of human survivors living in a shopping mall surrounded by swarms of zombies, but the details differ significantly. Directed by Zack Snyder, the film was produced by Strike Entertainment, released by Universal Studios and stars Ving Rhames, Sarah Polley and Jake Weber with cameos from original cast members Ken Foree, Scott Reiniger and Tom Savini. It was released in the United States on March 19, 2004 and in the United Kingdom on March 26, 2004.
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Quotations
I don't believe in God. I don't see how anyone could.
I think I'll just stay here awhile... enjoy the sunrise.
The bites killed her, the bites brought her back.
There are some things worse than death. And one of them is sitting here waiting to die.
En route to the marina, zombies swarm against Kenneth's bus. They're trying to turn us over! Hit them with the saw!
While her husband tries to staunch the flow of blood from a bite to his throat, Ana desperately dials 911, only to get repeated busy signals. Don't do this to me! Please, don't DO this to me!
Encyclopedia
Dawn of the Dead is a 2004 horror remake of George A. Romero's 1978 film of the same name. The remake and original both depict a handful of human survivors living in a shopping mall surrounded by swarms of zombies, but the details differ significantly. Directed by Zack Snyder, the film was produced by Strike Entertainment, released by Universal Studios and stars Ving Rhames, Sarah Polley and Jake Weber with cameos from original cast members Ken Foree, Scott Reiniger and Tom Savini. It was released in the United States on March 19, 2004 and in the United Kingdom on March 26, 2004. The film was Rated R in the U.S. for "Pervasive strong horror violence and gore, language and sexuality". In Australia it was edited for content and is rated MA15.
Plot
Ana, a nurse, finishes a long shift at her Milwaukee hospital, then returns to her peaceful suburban home and waiting husband Louis. The next morning the couple is awoken by their neighbor's zombified daughter entering their room, who they mistake as the victim of an animal attack. The young girl kills Louis, who reanimates as a zombie. Ana flees in her car, before an attempted hijacking sends her crashing into a tree and knocks her out. Accompanying the opening credits, a bleak news-video montage depicts swarms of zombies overwhelming human civilization worldwide.
Upon awaking, Ana meets Kenneth, a police sergeant. They and three others - jack-of-all-trades Michael, petty criminal Andre and his pregnant Russian wife Luda - break into the nearby Crossroads Shopping Mall. Inside, a scuffle with a zombified mall security guard results in Luda getting a minor bite-wound.
They confront three living security guards - C.J., Bart and Terry - and give up their weapons in exchange for refuge. After the group secures the mall, they head to the roof and "meet" another survivor, Andy, who is stranded alone in his gun store, across the mall's zombie-infested parking lot.
The next day, Terry sides with the new arrivals, C.J. and Bart are disarmed, and the inhabitants of a delivery truck are allowed into the mall, among them the driver, Norma, selfish Steve and bitten Frank and his teen daughter Nicole. The group determines that bites are how the zombies multiply; after Ana and Michael argue about what to do with the rapidly-deteriorating Frank, the man is isolated in a store with guard Kenneth. Michael and Ana achieve an awkward reconciliation, which is interrupted by Kenneth's shotgun blast as he kills the reanimated Frank.
Though the mall provides many material distractions, and Michael and Ana edge towards a romance, the undead surround the refuge in ever-increasing numbers, eventually filling the parking lot. The mall’s power goes out and C.J., Bart, Michael and Kenneth enter the underground parking garage to turn on the emergency generator. After they meet an unaffected dog, a zombie swarm kills Bart and traps the others in the generator compartment, where they douse the zombies with gasoline and set them ablaze.
Meanwhile, Andre, faced with the fact that Luda's bite-wound is inexorably killing her, sinks into denial and has Luda tied to a bed. Even as she gives birth, she dies and reanimates. Norma checks on the couple, discovering the zombie-Luda and the deranged Andre. Norma shoots Luda, causing Andre to snap completely; they exchange more gunfire, killing each other. Ana arrives and opens the bundle Andre was clutching to reveal a zombie baby. She pulls her revolver and a single shot rings through the mall.
The remaining survivors decide to flee the mall, fight their way to the local marina, and from there travel out on Steve's yacht to an island in Lake Michigan. They reinforce two shuttle buses from the parking garage, while chainsaws, propane tanks and other supplies are loaded onboard. Meanwhile, Andy is starving, so the mall survivors strap a pack of food on "Chips", the dog from the basement, and lower him into the parking lot. Chips reaches the gun-shop untouched, but a zombie gets in as well and badly injures Andy. Nicole, distraught over Chips, takes the delivery truck and barges into the gun store, where she is trapped by a now-zombified Andy.
A team led by Ken head into the sewers. They reach the gun store, kill the zombified Andy, find Nicole and Chips, and stock up on weapons and ammunition. They escape back to the sewers, but the zombies pursue them, and thanks to assigned guard Steve's negligence, break into the mall, forcing an immediate evacuation. The survivors pile into the buses and smash out into the parking lot, where a propane bomb is used to clear a path through the waiting horde. A horrible accident with a chainsaw splatters blood across the windshield of one bus, causing driver Kenneth to crash. Steve flees the toppled bus and is attacked by a hitchhiking zombie.
The others scramble for the second bus, meeting zombie-Steve on the way. Ana kills him, then lingers to get the boat keys off his corpse, allowing more zombies to catch up with them. Ana flees to the bus, and Michael helps her in. After a struggle, they pull away and speed to the marina, where they crash the bus and dash for the boat. C.J., cornered in the bus, detonates a final propane tank, blowing up the vehicle, more zombies, and himself. The remainder of the group gets on the boat, except for Michael, who was bitten while helping Ana. Ana watches as Michael draws his pistol, places it under his chin, and pulls the trigger.
As the closing credits roll, they are interspersed with short clips from a camcorder found on the boat. They show the boat reaches an island after a grim journey across the lake, only to be met by a new swarm of zombies. The group attempts to flee back to the boat, but the film ends with their ultimate fate unknown.
Cast
The production used real amputees to portray zombies with missing limbs.
Production
James Gunn is only partially responsible for the screenplay, despite receiving solo writing credit. After he left the project to concentrate on Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, both Michael Tolkin and Scott Frank were brought in for rewrites. In a commentary track on the Ultimate Edition DVD for the original Dawn, producer Richard P. Rubenstein explained that Tolkin further developed the characters, while Frank provided some of the bigger and upbeat action sequences.
The mall scenes of the film as well as the rooftop scenes were shot in the in Thornhill, Ontario and the rest of the scenes were shot in the Aileen-Willowbrook Neighborhood of Thornhill, Ontario. The set for Ana and Louis's bedroom was constructed in a backroom of the mall. The mall was defunct, which is the reason the production used it; the movie crew completely renovated the structure, and stocked it with fictitious stores after Starbucks Coffee and numerous other corporations refused to let their names be used (two exceptions to this are Roots and Panasonic). Most of the mall was demolished shortly after the film was shot. The fictitious stores include a coffeeshop called Hallowed Grounds (a lyric from Johnny Cash's song "The Man Comes Around," which was used over the opening credits), and an upscale department store called Gaylen Ross (an in-joke reference to one of the stars of the original 1978 movie).
The first half of the film was shot almost entirely in chronological order, while the final sequences on the boat and island were shot much later and at a different location (Universal Studios Hollywood) than the rest of the movie, after preview audiences objected to the sudden ending of the original print.
Deleted scenes
Scenes cut from the film's original theatrical release were added back for the "Unrated Director's Cut" DVD edition. Along with gore effects removed to obtain an "R-rating", they include a clearer depiction of how the survivors originally break into the mall, and a short scene where the character of Glen "tortures" the imprisoned C.J. and Bart with his reminiscing about his homosexual coming-of-age. The DVD also offers, as a bonus feature, several more scenes which were not included in any version of the film.
Music
The song that plays over the film's opening credits is "The Man Comes Around" by Johnny Cash. The track has suitably apocalyptic lyrics, contains mentions of Armageddon, numerous Bible references and quotes from the Book of Revelation 6:8. The film also featured "People Who Died" by The Jim Carroll Band, as well as both the original version of "Down with the Sickness" by Disturbed and the lounge, jazz-like version by Richard Cheese (the lounge version was played during the film, while the original version was played when the survivors met their morbid fate at the island). "Have a Nice Day" by Stereophonics was also used early in the film. The muzak playing in the mall when the survivors first arrive is Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy" and as they flee to the buses it is Air Supply's "All Out of Love". Both Muzak pieces, as well as others, were performed by Tree Adams.
Director Zack Snyder personally selected all the songs for the film's soundtrack.
Reception
In the UK, both this film and Shaun of the Dead were originally scheduled to be released the same week, but due to the similarity in the names of the two films and plot outline, UIP opted to push back Shauns release by two weeks.
The film has received mixed to generally positive reactions from both moviegoers and critics. It holds a rating of 77% on Rotten Tomatoes and 58% on Metacritic. Roger Ebert said the film "works and it delivers just about what you expect when you buy your ticket" but felt that it "lacks the mordant humor of the Romero version" and the "plot flatlines compared to the 1978 version, which was trickier, wittier and smarter." George A. Romero is quoted as saying of the film, "It was better than I expected. ... The first 15, 20 minutes were terrific, but it sort of lost its reason for being. It was more of a video game. I'm not terrified of things running at me; it's like Space Invaders. There was nothing going on underneath."
The film grossed over $59 million at the box office, (over $102 million worldwide) and is currently one of the few zombie films to make over $100 million at international box-office. Its success also launched the career of director Zack Snyder.
Comparisons to the original
In the original film, the zombies moved very slowly and were most menacing when they collected in large groups. In the remake, however, the zombies are fast and agile, and are, on the whole, closer to the quick-moving, psychotically violent victims of the 'Rage' virus in the 2002 British horror film 28 Days Later and the zombies of 1985's Return of the Living Dead than the traditional shambling Zombie archetype. Many admirers of the original, as well as Romero himself, protested this change, feeling that it limited the impact of the undead. This is somewhat borne out by the fact that the remake has almost no close up shots of zombies that last more than a second or two. Snyder mentions this in the commentary track of the remake's DVD, pointing out that they seem too human when the camera lingers upon them for longer.
In the original, as in Night of the Living Dead, all 'recently dead' are reanimated by an unidentified source. Zombie bites seem to somehow induce rapid death, and subsequent reanimation, even though death by any manner will result in reanimation of the dead as well. The cause is never fully elaborated upon, but news reports in the first film imply that the cause is radiation from a space probe to Venus that was destroyed and landed back on Earth. In the remake, it springs up worldwide overnight, and is definitely blood or saliva-borne, relying on zombie bites for transmission (like rabies). In the original, anyone who dies for any reason returns after several minutes (so long as their brain is intact). In the remake, only those infected return and after a period of less than a minute after death.
In the original, the zombie make-up was generally very simple and hokey. The remake emphasizes this aspect much more, giving the zombies a much more messy and frightening look. The blood in the original had a strong orange tint, giving it a fake and almost "cartoonish" look, which, according to Romero, was intended to give the film a "comic-book" feel. In contrast, the remake has many gruesome sequences of realistic violence and gore.
The original had a smaller cast than the remake, allowing more screen time for each character. Many fans and critics criticized the resulting loss of character development.
In the original version the story unfolds over several months, indicated by the advancing stages of Fran's pregnancy. In the remake the events transpire within approximately 1 month, as evidenced by the supplemental feature The Lost Tape: Andy's Terrifying Last Days Revealed, located on the DVD in the special features section.
Three actors from the original film have cameos in the remake, appearing on the TVs the survivors watch: Ken Foree, who played Peter from the original, plays an evangelist who asserts that God is punishing mankind; Scott H. Reiniger, who played Roger in the original, plays an army general telling everyone to stay at home for safety and Tom Savini, who did the special effects for many of Romero's movies and played the motorcycle gang member Blades in the original Dawn of the Dead, plays the Monroeville Sheriff explaining the only way to kill the zombies is to "shoot 'em in the head."
Additional references to Romero's original Living Dead movies include: During the opening scene of news footage, a brief clip shows a political figure from archive footage of actor Duane Jones who played Ben in the original Night of the Living Dead. This is a posthumous appearance as he died in July 22 1988. A store in the mall is named Gaylen Ross, the actress that played Fran in the original Dawn of the Dead. A sign for "Wooley's Diner" can be seen, a nod to the character of "Wooley" in the 1978 version. The character Tucker's name is a reference to Roy Tucker, one of the SWAT team members in the original. A truck from the BP corporation is seen, the same company as in the original. The WGON helicopter from the first film is seen flying into the frame in one early sequence. The film's tagline, "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth", is the same one from the first film, and is delivered in both films by actor Ken Foree. The mall-dwellers' ultimate escape plan echoes a similar attempt by a group of ex-policemen at the start of the original Dawn, while the remake's opening sequences contain at least two references to the original Night of the Living Dead film: a car crashes into a gas station and explodes, and the female lead crashes her car into a tree.
See also
External links
http://www.fu-manchu.com/dawnofthedead2004/
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