Lyzsi SinclairMovie Review - "Day Of The Dead" (2008 'remake')...
Getting back on top of my reviewing, we take a look at the 2008 film “Day Of The Dead” by Steve Miner; a film that is ‘based’ on the original 1985 film of the same name by director George A. Romero. It’s cast include Mena Suvari (“American Beauty”, “American Pie”); Ving Rhames (“Pulp Fiction”); Michael Welch (“Joan Of Arcadia”); AnnaLynne McCord (“90210”); Nick Cannon (“America’s Got Talent”); Stark Sands (“Catch That Kid”); and Ian McNeice (“Rome”, “Doctor Who”).
Pine Valley. Colorado – and the military are barricading all roads leading in, and out, after a strange illness has hit the town’s population. In charge of the barricade are Captain Rhodes (Ving Rhames) and Corporal Sarah Cross (Mena Suvari); soon joined by Privates Salazar (Nick Cannon) and Bud Crain (Stark Sands). Escaping the taunts and sexist jibes from some of the Privates, Sarah (an ex-resident of the town), takes Bud along with her to check on her brother, and her bed-ridden mother who needs to be taken to the nearest hospital. Heading out to check on her brother’s friend afterwards – they find a scene of devastation; and the bodies of his parents mauled and hidden behind the curtains. Needing to get her mother to the hospital, and unable to get through to the police – Sarah heads to Pine Valley hospital to get her mother some medical attention, and to let Captain Rhodes know about the bodies she found. With a hospital rammed to maximum capacity of people all falling under the same mystery illness, it soon becomes clear that something strange and horrifying is going on. When all the patients freeze in their places and then become re-animated with a disturbing and terrifying bloodlust for human flesh – things begin to spiral out of control. With people dying all around her, and no safe place to hide; can Corporal Sarah Cross find out just what’s going on, save the people she loves, and try to escape unharmed…? It’s going to be a long night, that’s for sure…
I stumbled across this film as I was trawling late-night television, and was intrigued to see what a ‘remake’ of one of my favourite films was like. I really wish I hadn’t bothered. I can honestly say that the only reason I kept watching, was because of a cast that I largely recognise, and like from other things.
There is no WAY on Earth this film can be considered a remake at all. In fact, the concept of it even being related to the fantastic Romero original – or even have the same title – is absolutely ludicrous! Fans of the original will note that a majority of the characters have the same (or similar in the case of “Bud/Bub”) names; and there are one or two weak links to things that happened in the original. Bud retaining memories of military training and etiquette as a zombie, and also being able to shoot a gun are reminiscent of Romero’s film. Captain Rhodes’ grizzly demise at the hands of hordes of the un-dead is also a similarly weak link. That is all that link the films in terms of anything happening on-screen; and therefore it angers me that the names of such two-juxtaposing films, can be the same.
It really appears to me that Steve Miner has no respect at all for Romero’s body of work, or for his representation of zombies. Instead of the thrillingly scary slow-moving-but-never-stopping threat of the un-dead purely acting on their need to feed on flesh; we get a mixture of some of the more modern versions of zombies or virus-victims haphazardly mashed together. These ‘zombies’ have super-strength like the mutated infected of “Resident Evil”; can climb walls and jump from windows, landing safely on the ground like “Spiderman”; and can run fast than Usain Bolt on speed, echoing the rage-infected victims of “28 Days Later”. This ridiculous mix-up of zombie and non-zombie traits results in a needlessly vile gore-fest, with no actual punch behind it.
I guess (I’m trying to find something salvageable from the film here), that Mena plays off the silly changes in character, constantly switching zombie continuity, and ridiculously plot-twists kind of well. If you fail to agree with that, she is always nice to look at – and that never hurts a film. Bud’s storyline – both human and zombie – is a little extreme at times, and one scene where he suddenly screams loudly alerting the un-dead to the place everyone is hiding; is clearly one of the extremely poor plot twists that try to rescue the film, when it staggers and sticks in places. The ending of the film plays out a bit more like a knock-off version of “Resident Evil”, with some of the films major points remaining unanswered – and ever more absurd plot twists and character introductions. Another annoyance I had was that AnnaLynne McCord’s character was a pathetic screaming mess of a girl, that somehow turns into a fully-charged, gun-weilding, zombie-killing heroine at the end. There was no lead up to this change in character - and to be honest it always irritates me when the snivelling, screaming mess survives a film, over far more competent characters.
I guess visually some of the effects were cool – but they certainly weren’t Romero, or the tongue-in-cheek greatness of Tom Savini. There is a scene with a mutilated corpse (I won’t tell you whose body it is), where the legs have been eaten off, and the zombie drags itself along with a fearsome power - which I actually found kinda great. Other than that, it seemed just like another B-movie zombie-flick, with a load of people trying to show off how greatly they can do zombie make-up and effects gore. I also wikipedia’d this film and found that according the article – the victims of the virus aren’t actually zombies or the un-dead as such, since they never actually died in the first place. Seems a bit redundant to me to therefore call the film “Day Of The Dead” – but hey, what do I know? I’m only a humble horror fan after all…
Overall, this chaotic wreck of a film is definitely one to steer clear of. Perhaps only watch it if you really have nothing else to do; or even if it’s on during an actual zombie apocalypse (I’d prefer being a member of the un-dead to watching this again myself). Honestly, I’ve said it already but if it wasn’t for the cast being made up of actors I like in both their public and professional lives; I’d have turned the television off way earlier. Not the worst zombie film you’ll ever watch, but definitely down at the bottom – “Day Of The Dead” gets a poor 2/10. Flix Out.
Pine Valley. Colorado – and the military are barricading all roads leading in, and out, after a strange illness has hit the town’s population. In charge of the barricade are Captain Rhodes (Ving Rhames) and Corporal Sarah Cross (Mena Suvari); soon joined by Privates Salazar (Nick Cannon) and Bud Crain (Stark Sands). Escaping the taunts and sexist jibes from some of the Privates, Sarah (an ex-resident of the town), takes Bud along with her to check on her brother, and her bed-ridden mother who needs to be taken to the nearest hospital. Heading out to check on her brother’s friend afterwards – they find a scene of devastation; and the bodies of his parents mauled and hidden behind the curtains. Needing to get her mother to the hospital, and unable to get through to the police – Sarah heads to Pine Valley hospital to get her mother some medical attention, and to let Captain Rhodes know about the bodies she found. With a hospital rammed to maximum capacity of people all falling under the same mystery illness, it soon becomes clear that something strange and horrifying is going on. When all the patients freeze in their places and then become re-animated with a disturbing and terrifying bloodlust for human flesh – things begin to spiral out of control. With people dying all around her, and no safe place to hide; can Corporal Sarah Cross find out just what’s going on, save the people she loves, and try to escape unharmed…? It’s going to be a long night, that’s for sure…
Facing a zombie apocalypse always seems cooler if you're in uniform...
I stumbled across this film as I was trawling late-night television, and was intrigued to see what a ‘remake’ of one of my favourite films was like. I really wish I hadn’t bothered. I can honestly say that the only reason I kept watching, was because of a cast that I largely recognise, and like from other things.
There is no WAY on Earth this film can be considered a remake at all. In fact, the concept of it even being related to the fantastic Romero original – or even have the same title – is absolutely ludicrous! Fans of the original will note that a majority of the characters have the same (or similar in the case of “Bud/Bub”) names; and there are one or two weak links to things that happened in the original. Bud retaining memories of military training and etiquette as a zombie, and also being able to shoot a gun are reminiscent of Romero’s film. Captain Rhodes’ grizzly demise at the hands of hordes of the un-dead is also a similarly weak link. That is all that link the films in terms of anything happening on-screen; and therefore it angers me that the names of such two-juxtaposing films, can be the same.
It really appears to me that Steve Miner has no respect at all for Romero’s body of work, or for his representation of zombies. Instead of the thrillingly scary slow-moving-but-never-stopping threat of the un-dead purely acting on their need to feed on flesh; we get a mixture of some of the more modern versions of zombies or virus-victims haphazardly mashed together. These ‘zombies’ have super-strength like the mutated infected of “Resident Evil”; can climb walls and jump from windows, landing safely on the ground like “Spiderman”; and can run fast than Usain Bolt on speed, echoing the rage-infected victims of “28 Days Later”. This ridiculous mix-up of zombie and non-zombie traits results in a needlessly vile gore-fest, with no actual punch behind it.
Definitely not a film for the faint-hearted...or anyone expecting to be impressed for that matter!
I guess (I’m trying to find something salvageable from the film here), that Mena plays off the silly changes in character, constantly switching zombie continuity, and ridiculously plot-twists kind of well. If you fail to agree with that, she is always nice to look at – and that never hurts a film. Bud’s storyline – both human and zombie – is a little extreme at times, and one scene where he suddenly screams loudly alerting the un-dead to the place everyone is hiding; is clearly one of the extremely poor plot twists that try to rescue the film, when it staggers and sticks in places. The ending of the film plays out a bit more like a knock-off version of “Resident Evil”, with some of the films major points remaining unanswered – and ever more absurd plot twists and character introductions. Another annoyance I had was that AnnaLynne McCord’s character was a pathetic screaming mess of a girl, that somehow turns into a fully-charged, gun-weilding, zombie-killing heroine at the end. There was no lead up to this change in character - and to be honest it always irritates me when the snivelling, screaming mess survives a film, over far more competent characters.
Bud is a vegetarian zombie - yeah, I'm not convinced by it either...
I guess visually some of the effects were cool – but they certainly weren’t Romero, or the tongue-in-cheek greatness of Tom Savini. There is a scene with a mutilated corpse (I won’t tell you whose body it is), where the legs have been eaten off, and the zombie drags itself along with a fearsome power - which I actually found kinda great. Other than that, it seemed just like another B-movie zombie-flick, with a load of people trying to show off how greatly they can do zombie make-up and effects gore. I also wikipedia’d this film and found that according the article – the victims of the virus aren’t actually zombies or the un-dead as such, since they never actually died in the first place. Seems a bit redundant to me to therefore call the film “Day Of The Dead” – but hey, what do I know? I’m only a humble horror fan after all…
Overall, this chaotic wreck of a film is definitely one to steer clear of. Perhaps only watch it if you really have nothing else to do; or even if it’s on during an actual zombie apocalypse (I’d prefer being a member of the un-dead to watching this again myself). Honestly, I’ve said it already but if it wasn’t for the cast being made up of actors I like in both their public and professional lives; I’d have turned the television off way earlier. Not the worst zombie film you’ll ever watch, but definitely down at the bottom – “Day Of The Dead” gets a poor 2/10. Flix Out.
