Dawn Of The Dead
March 20th, 2004 byDawn of the Dead bites. No pun intended.
Cannibals, what a pain. I mean, what a horrible way to start the day… being bitten by an undead cannibal. And to make matters worse, after being bitten you die, then you become one of the undead yourself and go on to bite other people and turn them into undead cannibals. Like a virus, movies with this exact same zombie plot spread all over the movie scene, boring the hell out of audiences everywhere. Dawn of the Dead falls effortlessly into this niche of cliche horror films, adding little or nothing to the overall diversity of the horror genre.
What surprises me the most about this phenomenon is that bigger and bigger name actors are starting to take rolls in formulaic horror movies. Ving Rhames and Mekhi Phifer are only two of many name-brand actors who’ve opted to take this road. And what surprises me second most about this film is that the entire formula seems to work. I went to the opening show of Dawn of the Dead today. It was packed. People seemed to love it. Possibly their expectations weren’t very high. Possibly they have an extremely short memory for nearly identical films like 28 Days Later which came out only months ago. I have no idea.
The popular vote for this movie will likely be around 5 out of 10. My vote is a mere 3 out of 10 as it lacked originality, cohesive plot, interesting characters (although the acting wasn’t too bad), or especially compelling editing or photography. It was paced quickly enough to keep me sorta interested. But that’s like saying the paint on a Ford Pinto is nice. It doesn’t make you want to have it. Don’t bother with Dawn Of The Dead. It’s pretty boring. Nothing you haven’t seen before.