DVD Movie Rating for: Dawn of the Dead

Rating for Dawn of the Dead: 3 out of 5 stars

Movie Plot of: Dawn of the Dead

A nurse named Ana and her husband Louis have a romantic night together as an emergency broadcast comes on the TV, warning of an unknown plague that revives the recently-dead as cannibalistic zombies in search of living flesh. Next morning, Louis is attacked & killed by a young girl zombie - their next-door neighbor. Minutes after he dies, Louis is on his feet and pursuing Ana. She escapes to her car to see her neighborhood in chaos; emergency vehicles everywhere, flaming buildings - and zombies pursuing the few remaining living people. After a narrow escape a policeman, Kenneth, rescues her and they meet up with three others, who head to a closed shopping mall in search of safety. One at a time, some of those they seek refuge with die and return as zombies, and former friends now become deadly enemies. They finally figure out a way to escape by armoring two mall shuttle buses to get through the masses of living dead zombies....Will they succeed?

DVD Production Details of: Dawn of the Dead

Starring: Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames

Director: Zack Snyder

Format: Widescreen, Director's Cut

Aspect Ratio(s): 2.35:1

Audio Encoding: Dolby Digital 5.1

Studio: Umvd
DVD Release Date: October 26, 2004
Run Time: 110

DVD Extra Features

The Lost Tape: Andy's Terrifying Last Days Revealed

This short feature was a great tie-in to the film. It shows video made by Andy, the man trapped on the roof of the gun shop. He keeps a video diary as he is stranded in the building. It ends up being a short story on its own as we see what went on across the street from the main characters. While it is slow at times, it's a great idea and it really expands on the story.

Special Bulletin: We Interrupt This Program!

This is the news footage seen in the film complete and uncut. They show the newscasters explaining the disaster from it's beginning to its end. From this you learn how the zombie virus spread all over the world and how it ended civilization. You see video of the President, survivalist instructional videos on killing zombies, reporters being attacked, and even videos of frat boys having their way with a sexy zombie before being attacked. Somebody that made this must be a Babylon 5 fan because the main newscaster was from that series and Bruce Boxlietner is the voice of the President. Anyway, this video, too, expands on the film.

Undead Scenes with Commentary by Director Zack Snyder

There's 12 minutes of deleted scenes included here. Most of them are brief zombie attacks that were cut or a sentence here and there that was dropped. None of them were that great or memorable and they are better left on the cutting room floor. The only good one was a scene of a zombie cut in half and crawling across a floor.

Raising the Dead-

This shows how they turned an army of extras into zombies. They go into detail about the variety of makeup effects from elaborate appliances all the way to putting Halloween masks on guys and drenching them in fake blood. If you like makeup effects, you'll love this.

Attack of the Living Dead

This shows how a few of the more memorable effects scenes in the film were done. They show how they turned a stuntman into the fat zombie woman in the film. They show how they took a one armed man and turned him into a zombie jogger who is missing his arm. They also show how they made the pregnant zombie, the zombie with a stake through his head, and the zombie with his legs missing. Again, if you love makeup effects, you'll love this.

Splitting Headaches: Anatomy of Exploding Heads

This short feature goes into detail about how they made the zombies' heads explode. It's pretty interesting from a technical standpoint how they made it look so realistic. They are definitely creative, twisted minds.

Feature Commentary with Director Zack Snyder and Producer Eric Newman

These guys recorded the commentary a couple of days before the release of the film, so you're not treated to their hindsight on the project. However, they do talk about what they had to cut for budgetary reasons, how they shot the film, trivia, and more. It's an interesting commentary if you enjoyed the movie.

Cast of the movie: Dawn of the Dead

• Sarah Polley .... Ana
• Ving Rhames .... Kenneth
• Jake Weber .... Michael
• Mekhi Phifer .... Andre
• Ty Burrell .... Steve
• Michael Kelly .... CJ
• Kevin Zegers .... Terry
• Michael Barry .... Bart
• Lindy Booth .... Nicole
• Jayne Eastwood .... Norma
• Boyd Banks .... Tucker
• Inna Korobkina .... Luda
• R.D. Reid .... Glen
• Kim Poirier .... Monica
• Matt Frewer .... Frank
• Justin Louis .... Luis
• Hannah Lochner .... Vivian
• Bruce Bohne .... Andy
• Ermes Blarasin .... Bloated Woman
• Sanjay Talwar .... Doctor Rosen
• Kim Roberts .... Cora
• Tim Post .... Reviving Doctor
• Matt Austin .... EMS Technician
• Philip DeWilde .... EMS Technician
• Colm Magner .... Armed Neighbor
• Luigia Zucaro .... Naked Woman
• Geoff Williams .... Metro Bus Driver
• Mike Realba .... Maintenance Man
• David Campbell .... Squished Zombie
• Philip Mackenzie .... Thrashing Zombie (as Philip MacKenzie)
• Laura DeCarteret .... Washington Politician
• Georgia Craig .... Anchorwoman
• Tino Monte .... Istanbul Reporter
• Chris Gillett .... Older Anchorwoman
• Derek Keurvorst .... Scientist
• Dan Duran .... Confused Reporter
• Neville Edwards .... CDC Spokesman
• Sandy Jobin-Bevans .... CDC Reporter
• Natalie Madison-Brown .... CDC Reporter (as Natalie Brown)
• Liz West .... CDC Reporter
• Blu .... Chips the Dog
• Scott H. Reiniger .... The General (as Scott Reiniger)
• Tom Savini .... The County Sheriff
• Ken Foree .... The Televangelist
• Zack Snyder .... Commando at White House (uncredited)

Photo Gallery of the movie: Dawn of the Dead

Click on one of the thumbnails to see the full size high quality photos, posters and wallpapers of Dawn of the Dead starring Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames

Photo Gallery Dawn of the Dead starring Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames

Reviews of the movie: Dawn of the Dead

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.

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"Attention Shoppers! The mall is now closing forever.."
How will mankind behave in the end times? Will we turn into raving lunatics and attack one another? Will we try to slavishly hold onto some fabric of our society? Will we kick back and accept what is happening?

`Dawn of the Dead' in some ways tries to answer that question. The movie, a remake of George Romero's classic 1978 sequel to `Night of the Living Dead,' throws a group of people together while society crumbles around them and allows the viewer to watch as humans seek to survive an onslaught of the undead.

The movie opens with the unimaginable happening. Hordes of zombies have overtaken Milwaukee and numerous survivors are both fighting off the monsters and trying to escape the city. One such group includes Ana (Sarah Polley), a nurse who is running scared after losing her husband, Kenneth (Ving Rhames), a tough-as-nails cop, Michael (Jake Weber), who tries to be two-steps ahead of any dangerous situation, and Andre (Mekhi Phifer), whose trying to care of his pregnant wife.

Seeking shelter from the waves of zombie attacks, the group decides to head toward a local mall and hole up there until help arrives. Once inside they join with security guards and use the shopping center as a refuge from the undead while trying to piece together what's left of their lives.

The plot is pretty straightforward, and relies mostly on cliché themes to move the story along. So as a rule, most films such as this tend to be predictable and quite tepid. Luckily, `Dawn of the Dead' has strong personalities to fall back on, making it thankfully every bit a character-driven drama as it is a horror-action piece.

As Ana, Sarah Polley convincingly plays a waif turned survivor with just the right amount of emoting. She is strong and vulnerable at the same moment, trying to remain reasonable in unreasonable times. Weber also fits this bill as Michael, a man with a shady past full of regret who tries to fill others with hope while remaining a stark realistic.

Rhames' performance clearly commands the most attention. As Kenneth, he becomes the group's de facto leader and top man of action. He keeps the clearest head when trouble is afoot and leads the group out of one scrape after another. Rhames gives the character a silent strength that provides the film with a much needed human edge.

First time director Zack Snyder moves the film along briskly and effectively, keeping the action scenes tight and the dramatic scenes quiet. There is no heavy-handed sermonizing here that tends to infiltrate most big-budget horror movies -- Snyder wisely lets the images speak for themselves.

The horror itself is shocking and grabs your attention, which is a plus considering most of the recent crop of thrillers. The fact that it is happening to sympathetic characters that we care about is another feather in the movie's cap.

All to often most horror movies are just excuses for numerous poorly developed characters to be killed in awful ways for the enjoyment of the audience. As far as recent zombie movies go, `Dawn of the Dead' thankfully remains closer to `28 Days Later' than `House of the Dead.'

However, despite all the movie's strengths, it still pales in comparison to the original. Romero's `Dawn of the Dead' took the premise of people trapped in mall and used it to make some pointed social commentary about consumerism. The first '`Dawn' had human characters selfishly hoarding material goods for themselves, using the mall not only as a refuge from zombies but also as their own personal palace that provides them with more items than they could ever need.

It's to the detriment of the new film that it never takes the concept to this level. Here, the story seems to take place in a mall because it's a cool place for a horror movie, not because it can draw out anything interesting in the characters themselves. Also, in the original the zombies wanted inside not only to eat the humans but also because they are drawn to the shopping center since is was an important place to them when they were alive.

It's a shame that this time around viewers won't get the chance to see zombies wandering around JC Penney or stumbling up and down escalators, the joke being humans amble about aimlessly themselves like the undead at the mall.

`Dawn of the Dead' is a very bloody and terrifying film but it lacks the superior gory effects from the 1978 movie. That should not stop the squeamish from twitching in their seats due to the horrific content onscreen.

Good acting and smart thinking elevates the proceedings among most other horror offerings, but compared to Romero's original it lacks the observations necessary to make it a classic. The first film remains an intelligent critique on human actions during the apocalypse, while this is just a suspense drama that is dressed to kill.

8 out of 10 stars. Not as good as Romero's original, but still one heck of a shot in the arm to cure the memory from most modern horror misfires

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When there's no room in Hell, the dead walk to the mall. That was the message of horror master George Romero's 1978 anti-consumerism flick Dawn of the Dead. This 2004 remake by first-time director Zack Snyder takes away a lot of the social message, and fills it instead with plenty of head-blasting zombie-killing mayhem and a surprisingly unpredictable storyline that-while far from perfect-is a lot of fun to watch.

The plot loosely follows the Romero original. This time around, the star of the survivors' crew is Ana (Sarah Polley), a nurse who wakes up from a romantic night with her boyfriend to a nightmarish world gone undead. Her neighbor's cute kid has turned into a flesh-eater, and has taken a big bite out of her sweetheart, turning him into one of her vicious kind. And, all over her idyllic suburban Wisconsin town, the dead are walking again; they're hungry, and they can run like the dickens.

Ana stumbles across some other "living": a cop (Ving Rhames), a recovering bad boy (Mekhi Phifer), his pregnant gal pal (can you see where this is headed?), and a level-headed everyman (Jack Weber). They make for the safety of a well-stocked shopping mall, holing up with three security guards and hoping to be rescued by the military. Not a bad way to spend a zombie crisis! Much like the original, Snyder's version shows our castaways indulging in the consumerist joys of the shopping mall and the company of each other-kind of like an apocalyptic Breakfast Club.

After more survivors make their way to the mall, it soon becomes clear to nurse Ana how the zombie disease spreads: by bite; and the only cure is a shotgun blast to the head or via a little taste of fire. So what do they do now? Wallow in their mall bounty until they're starved out? Or find a way to escape? And to where?

The new Dawn of the Dead isn't short on fast-paced, extremely gory action, especially in the several awe-inspiring scenes of zombie masses overrunning city, state, country, and possibly even world. But there are also an excellent handful of comic touches thrown in, helping to keep the movie from droning downward into cliché. For example, there's the rooftop conversation using dry-erase boards between Rhames and a gun-store owner islanded across a mall parking lot, followed by that same gun-store guy's sniper-style shooting game, picking off zombie celebrity look-alikes for points. In total, this update has all the brutality of such recent undead favorites as 28 Days Later, but still maintains the humor that Romero worked into his Dead trilogy. Romero fans shouldn't be too let down by that mix.

The talented cast, which includes such proven performers as Sarah Polley (The Sweet Hereafter, Go) and Ving Rhames (Pulp Fiction, Out of Sight), are only icing on the cake. Let's face it; zombie flicks don't pose a serious acting challenge for some of these folks. But in the end, they help build the suspense and sustain the humorous elements. Much of Dawn wouldn't have worked well without their efforts.

And finally, Snyder keeps the whole thing visually fresh with a range of shooting, from slick, commercial-like filming to cinema verite-style grainy DV. He even ventures to expand the movie into its closing credits (rather nastily, I might add), which further keeps this film from ever being dull.

The only warning I offer is that this is one gruesome blood-fest. Snyder establishes very early on, prior to the opening credits (set tidily to the musical stylings of Johnny Cash), that he's not afraid to let the blood packs splatter. But once you get used to the carnage, you may just find yourself on a rather terrifying yet thrilling little ride. And if you're already a die-hard zombie movie fan, you'll leave your memories of the Romero version behind, just to indulge in the delights of Snyder's wild, new, imaginary interpretation.