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Movie reviews: Day of the Dead (2008)

In the early 1990's Night Of The Living Dead became the first of George A. Romero's "Dead" movies to get a remake. In 2004 Dawn Of The Dead was remade by Zach Synder and really pumped life into the series, and now Tom Miner takes a crack at the third of Romero's movie; with drastically different results.

Day Of The Dead is the most dramatically different of the remakes, although it follows vaguely similar lines it could in fact be a completely different movie to the original. In 1985's Day Of The Dead the story was set in a bunker with a series of ragtag military types trying to fight an army of Zombies that used to be the human race. The 2008 offering starts with the story afresh as do all the remakes, explaining the story from the offset (Romero's all followed on from each other). Setting the story in a small mountain town, with a military base; as the movie begins the town is in lockdown having had a strange virus sweeping through the town. As the military controls the situation, it allows Sarah (Mena Suvari)a senior ranking officer the opportunity to slip away to tend to personal matters, namely the sudden illness of her mother. In doing so she finds herself in the local hospital with her mother, brother and his girlfriend in toe. It's here that things go from being a simple virus, to a deadly infection as those infected lose control and lash out at those that are "normal", the quest to eat human flesh being unquenchable.

While still achieving the military connections of the original, Day Of The Dead only pursues the bunker aspect of the movie in the last 20 minutes, instead opting to follow the events of a zombie take over in a small town. Part of the tedium of the original in my mind was that it became very insular very quickly, where as this version continuously moves from location to location, beginning at a checkpoint, moving onto a hospital, radio station, car park, and finally the military bunker.

This version of Day Of The Dead sadly still is not a good movie, despite its continual moving and an abundance of action scenes. Having enjoyed the big budget feel of Dawn Of The Dead's 2004 remake this movie goes much lower down the budget constraints, opting to utilise darkness to cover up the flaws of the special effects. The story is kind of flawed too; although it's consistent there were several points that I found myself almost nodding off, even during the heart of the action.

The movie avoids using Romero's slow moving zombies, none of that slow staggering


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Movie reviews: Day of the Dead (2008)

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    In the early 1990's Night Of The Living Dead became the first of George A. Romero's "Dead" movies to get a remake. In 2004

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