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RATING |
| 5 |
| DIRECTOR |
| Steve Miner |
| CAST |
Ving Rhames
Mena Suvari
Nick Cannon
Michael Welch
Annalynne McCord
Stark Sands |
YEAR |
| 2007 |
RUNTIME |
| 87 minutes |
DATE REVIEWED |
| 2 / 12 / 08 |
SHOPPING |
| BUY THIS FILM |
| REVIEWER: FrighT MasteR |
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RATE THIS MOVIE:
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RATED BY:
156 FAN(S) |
CURRENT RATING:
6.67 SKULL(S)
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Day of the Dead
"WTF are zombies doing hoping like frogs and crawling on walls!?" is the question you'll likely ask yourself while watching this forgettable remake. Yes, the zombies in this flick love to sprint, climb on ceilings and walls, and occasionally hope like a frog. Why? Who knows!? Obviously writer Jeffrey Reddick didn't! There was even one key zombie towards the end that would (for one reason or another) holler like a T-rex and dodge bullets?? *sigh* There's no reasoning behind how they're able to do these things.
Instead, we're merely given a half-assed explanation that the military (what a surprise!) created some kind of weapon that would hypothetically shut down the enemy's brain for 6 or 7-hours, resulting in a war without any casualties. However, this experiment backfired when it somehow broke out of the military institution in a small Colorado town and people that came in contact with the chemical would get cold symptoms and bleed from their nose over time. Then, their brain finally shuts down and puts them into a dead state, where they would wake up with foggy eyes, lesions on their face and intent to feed on human flesh.
So the movie follows a handful of key characters: there's Mena Suvari as "Sarah," a female officer and local to the town that for some reason decides to bring a new recruit along on a trip to visit her sick mother at her old home. Ving Rhames returns (probably got suckered into thinking it was a direct sequel to Dawn), only this time playing a different character. There are other supporting characters that add to the body count, like Nick Cannon as the stereotypical wise-crackin' "gangsta", and a couple young horny teens (I think they were supposed to be teens?).
The film kicks into gear around 25-minutes, when everyone in the military hospital starts secreting blood and all "shut down" at the same time, resulting in a panic, especially when they awaken as zombies. It doesn't take long before the hospital and most of the town become zombies, leaving only a couple small groups to attempt to survive through the mayhem, and somehow meet up and leave town together.
This movie is pretty much a complete overhaul over the original film, which mostly took place in an underground military facility. In fact, the two movies really have no similarities with each other (with the exception of the name and an obvious nod to the original). The nod I'm speaking of is about a character named "Bud," who after turning, becomes a good-guy zombie, because his love for Sarah (Mena Suvari) somehow overcomes his instinct to kill (even though he just met the girl a few hours ago). Naturally this is a reference to the "Bub" zombie in the original that proved that their kind is still capable of some kind of thought.
Speaking of which, the zombies in this flick were somewhat intelligent -- shooting off guns (though not accurately) and doing other little things that show that they're not entirely brain-dead. The gore is decent, but pales in comparison to the original. Although the budget is slightly bigger than the crap-fest Day of the Dead 2: Contagium (also produced by the guy that produced this flick), it still looks pretty straight-to-DVD.
The CGI is just plain horrible, especially in the explosion/fire sequences. Then we've got a lot of unnecessary CG blood thrown around everywhere. I admit that I was at least interested and somewhat entertained at parts of the film, but it was still just an overall bad movie. Just because they throw in a few familiar faces, doesn't mean it'll blind us to the horrible script, acting, and special effects. Oh, and why is the zombie on the DVD cover vomiting? Also not explained!
OVERALL
Almost completely different from the original film in every aspect. Gore, acting, and story-wise, this forgettable remake pales in comparison, and offers nothing we haven't seen before in the genre, aside from ridiculous hoping and wall-crawling zombies. However, it still somehow managed to keep my interest, but not enough to care for the characters or the silly ending. Skip this.
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but they released alternate covers
go look for them. their not bad