"Dawn of the Dead" Preview

It seemed too perfect: a special guest at last night's sneak peek of the "re-envisioning" of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead was none other than shock rocker and film director Rob Zombie. Who better to have in the house than a real, live Zombie while watching a movie about zombies?

I like Zombie, but I don't go in for zombies. From 1968's Night of the Living Dead to 2003's 28 Days Later... the undead usually have me bored me out of my gourd. Another thing I don't like is the avoidance of the term "remake". A couple of years back, filmmakers tried the word "re-imagining" on for size. All I could do was chuckle to myself. Who did they think they were kidding? Now the producer of the new Dawn of the Dead, Eric Newman, is calling his movie a "re-envisioning". They keep trying. I keep laughing.

I was not, however, laughing during last night's screening. While there are a few moments of levity in Dawn of the Dead, this is indeed a straight ahead horror movie. As star Sarah Polley says, "Eric and Zack [Snyder, the director] had some great ideas for the film and they knew that for the drama to work, this outrageous scenario had to be taken seriously. In horror, we've gotten used to it being very tongue-in-cheek, and the sense that the actors are in on the joke. I think it's very brave ... It takes a lot more balls <i>not</i> to be in on the joke."

You probably already know the story, but it never hurts to retell... no, wait... re-enlighten.

As a typical U.S. town is turned upside-down by a mysterious plague-like event in which millions of corpses walk the earth as blood-thirsty zombies, a small group of survivors fight the good fight. They include a nurse (Polley), a police officer (Ving Rhames), and a man (Mekhi Phifer) with his very pregnant girlfriend (Inna Korobkina). They try to find shelter in a shopping mall, appropriately named The Crossroads -- What they don't figure on is that the undead still have residual memory, and *everyone* loves going to the mall, right? (All zombies, half-off!)

Dawn of the Dead hits theaters on March 19.

In the meantime you can occupy yourself with the DVD release of the 1978 version of Dawn of the Dead, coming out this Friday. Unlike the, er, "re-envisioning", the original Dawn of the Dead is kinda funny, scary, cheesy, and gross all at once. It picks the story up from where Night of the Living Dead left off. The zombies have multiplied at an alarming rate and the few non-zoms left try to make their last stand behind police barricades as they go deep underground. As law and order goes out the window, a weather-beaten band of survivors takes refuge in a vacant shopping mall. But the cannibals are never far behind, and they always hungry.

The zombie makeup -- basically blue faces and red-painty blood -- looks pretty dated. Romero takes little time with his human characters, lingering long on lumbering zombies instead. Yawns for me, but if you're a fan of Dawn of the Dead, even you might want to hold off on buying this stop-gap disc. Apparently, Anchor Bay Entertainment is planning a more extensive special edition for later this year.

The main extra on the march 9 release is a new screen-specific audio commentary, with recollections from Romero, his assistant director and wife Christine Romero, and makeup artist Tom Savini. While true fans will want to wait for the deluxe special edition, this release is an improvement over the existing one's transfer. If you want to brush of up on your Dead before the new release, it's at least worth a rent.