Heart-pounding action and bone-chilling thrills power this edgy, electrifying fright-fest starring Mekhi Phifer (8 Mile), Ving Rhames (Mission: Impossible) and Sarah Polley (Go)!
When a mysterious virus turns people into mindless, flesh-eating zombies, a handful of survivors wage a desperate, last-stand battle to stay alive...and human! Exploding with terrifying surprises and nerve-shredding fun, Dawn of the Dead is an edge-of-your-seat thrill-ride that FOX-TV calls "one of the best horror flicks in years."
(48 votes)
3.
First-time director Zack Snyder remakes zombie master George A. Romero's classic 1978 gore-fest DAWN OF THE DEAD, wisely replicating only the basic elements of Romero's movie, and instead sticking to his own vision of a world overrun by undead flesh-eating creatures. The action begins with nurse Ana (Sarah Polley) waking up to discover her boyfriend has become a tasty midnight snack for a formerly cute neighboring kid. To her horror, she realizes that the whole town is in a similar state of ghoulishness, until she runs into still-alive cop Kenneth (Ving Rhames); the levelheaded Michael (Jack Weber); and Andre (Mekhi Phifer), a rebel with a pregnant wife in tow. As in Romero's original, the group heads for the local mall where they barricade themselves inside. More survivors surface, while in the outside world the zombies go about their day by slowly taking over the planet. Undeterred by the odds against them, the survivors plot, scheme, and enjoy their mall paradise. As they plan their escape, some incredibly gruesome special effects are deployed, often with a dash of wry humor added for light relief.
Placing the messages from Romero's version--a funny, scary look at consumerist society--on the back burner, the 2004 version of DAWN OF THE DEAD instead concentrates on delivering a witty blood-fest. The zombies appear to have taken their cues from the fast-moving corpses of Danny Boyle's 28 DAYS LATER, and are generally much more agile than their 1978 counterparts. Director Snyder gets the balance between humorous set-pieces and plot development exactly right throughout, producing an enjoyable remake that can easily hold its own alongside the deservedly hailed original film.
(46 votes)
4.
Why it started…where it started—NOT KNOWN.
Whatever happened, however it started, overnight, the world has become a living nightmare of surreal proportions, with the planet’s population hit by an inexplicable, unfathomable and lethal plague—and the dead aren’t staying dead. Corpses yearning for their next meal are now stalking the few remaining survivors, driven by their insatiable hunger to feed upon the flesh of the living.
After a terrifying escape from her suburban Wisconsin home on the morning after, Ana Clark (SARAH POLLEY) runs into a small group of the still-living, including: a stoic police officer, Kenneth (VING RHAMES); Michael, an unassuming electronics salesman (JAKE WEBER); a street- rough Andre (MEKHI PHIFER) and his pregnant wife. This ragtag group seeks refuge in a fortress of the late 20th Century—an abandoned, upscale suburban mall.
As the world outside grows more hellish, as the ever-increasing army of decomposing zombies tirelessly strive to infiltrate the mall, the survivors battle the undead, each other and their own fears and suspicions. Sealed off from the rest of what used to be the world, the mall’s inhabitants—now one of the last bastions of humanity— must learn to co-exist with each other and use every available resource in their fight to remain alive, and more importantly, human.
When there is no room in hell, the dead will walk the earth…
(43 votes)
5.
Are you ready to get down with the sickness? Movie logic dictates that you shouldn't remake a classic, but Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead defies that logic and comes up a winner. You could argue that George A. Romero's 1978 original was sacred ground for horror buffs, but it was a low-budget classic, and Snyder's action-packed upgrade benefits from the same manic pacing that energized Romero's continuing zombie saga. Romero's indictment of mega-mall commercialism is lost (it's arguably outmoded anyway), so Snyder and screenwriter James Gunn compensate with the same setting--in this case, a Milwaukee shopping mall under siege by cannibalistic zombies in the wake of a devastating viral outbreak--a well-chosen cast (led by Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber, and Mekhi Phifer), some outrageously morbid humor, and a no-frills plot that keeps tension high and blood splattering by the bucketful. Horror buffs will catch plenty of tributes to Romero's film (including cameos by three of its cast members, including gore-makeup wizard Tom Savini), and shocking images are abundant enough to qualify this Dawn as an excellent zombie-flick double-feature with 28 Days Later, its de facto British counterpart. --Jeff Shannon
(44 votes)
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