Day of the Dead (2008)
Our Score: 6/10
Rated: 7.33 from 10
This article has been seen 476 times.
Number of Votes: 3
Visitors:
479
Summary:A Fun Romp Through the Land 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 shit the zombies were
pretty fuckin' 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.
From what I've seen around the web, most complaints about this movie
are really anal.
Here are a few really stupid complaints.
That didn't look like Leadville, Colorado!
It's a small town
with a real name, who the fuck cares what it looks like.
It's called Day of the Dead, but it all happens at night.
It's day somewhere, bitch!
Nick Cannon refers to these creatures
as zombies yet no one is declared dead
I swear people will find any
reason to complain. If you saw this shit you'd probably call em zombies
too, or do you need a scientist to tell you what to believe and say
every second of your pathetic life?
The zombies moved too fast
I personally thought that was done very well. And I'm open to the idea of
trying different things with an unoriginal idea. If I wanted unoriginal
things in unoriginal ideas, I'd rewatch something else.
I'm also tired of film makers trying to make zombies look scary
and / or cool.
I honestly would rather they look scary / cool,
after all I'm watching the movie to be entertained.
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.
"In Romero's films the zombies aren't supposed to be scary. They are
background props. The real terror comes from human stupidity. Ben and
Cooper wouldn't work together, because that would have meant one
accepted the other as boss, or worse yet, they accepted each other as
equals, so they died, and took everyone else with them. Roger wouldn't
take the situation seriously, so he died. Peter and Steve wouldn't
share what they had, or accept that they were going to lose it anyway,
so Stephen died in a futile attempt to make things hard for the bikers.
Rhodes, and Logan both went crazy, while everyone else just wanted to
argue, and it caused almost everyone to die. Land sucked, so I won't
even dignify it here--any movie that can make Asia Argento look bad is
made of fail.
Just imagine that these movies took place on the edge of a cliff,
instead of a world overrun with zombies. Some characters push and shove
each other until they all go over the side. One guy thinks it would be
funny to do a one-handed headstand on the edge, and so he falls over.
Another character sees a bunch of other people trying to climb up the
side, so he jumps off hoping that his body will kill some of them, lest
they make it up. There's a voice of reason in the group, but it's
ignored at every turn." 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.
