Night of the Reviews: Dawn of the Dead (2004)

     After the beginning of the resurgence of the zombie genre with 28 Days Later and the first Resident Evil, producers Eric Newman and Marc Abraham wanted to help blow the doors wide open for the genre into modern times. I can definitely say that they were largely successful with that. Dawn of the Dead 2004 was written by James Gunn and directed by Zack Snyder. At the time, the pair were rather unknown names. Well I guess you could say that James Gunn wasn't that unknown, he had written the live action Scooby Doo zombies by then. Looking back, it was pretty fantastic to see how they would go on in their careers to become such large names in horror and the superhero genre. 

    Dawn of the Dead 2004 was a remake of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978). For the most part, it does everything that a remake could do rather successfully. One of the biggest reasons why this film worked so well is its casting. Sarah Polley, Ty Burrell, Ving Rhames, Michael Kelly, and Mehki Phifer are all the big names. There are a lot of other now well known actors and actresses that also pop up in the film. This ensemble is incredible. Everyone plays off one another so wonderfully. And even the great Ken Foree returns in a cameo as a Priest on Televsion and delivers his iconic line from the original 'When There's No Room in Hell, The Dead Shall Walk The Earth'. 

    Another success for this film is that it's not a retelling of the original story. Yeah, we have the basic foundation of survivors living out in a shopping mall. That's about as much of a connection to the original as we are going to get. And that's is 100 percent okay. It allows this to be more of a reimagining than a remake. And that is exactly what it needed to be. It allowed so much freedom to unshackle themselves from being a straight up remake. It allowed us to grow with these new characters and establish connections with them. And when some of them start falling, boy does it hurt. 

    If Night of the Living Dead 1990 had a little gore, Dawn of the Dead 2004 brings the gore in with a firehose. The blood flows swift and free when everything hits the fans. It's honestly pretty fantastic. Then there are the zombies. And yeah, this film straight up calls them zombies. This was the first of the new generation of zombie films that called them what they were. It definitely set the tone by doing that. These zombies are also securely not in the Romero mold. They broke the mold completely. They are fast. They are swift. If you aren't careful and blink, you'll be overcome rather quickly. These updated zombies are fantastic and scary as all hell. I mean in the opening moments of the film, we are treated to the neighbor girl sprinting so fast down the hallway towards Sarah Polley. I remember seeing this in the theater opening day. This moment had such a powerful impact as it still is so terrifying to this day. It brilliantly establishes what to expect from the film. 

    Dawn of the Dead 2004 holds up so well to this day. It's a brilliant example of what a remake should be. Honestly as we will see with some of the other remakes in this franchise, they didn't learn from this example. The fantastic thing is that Dawn of the Dead 2004 makes a brilliant double feature with Night of the Living Dead 1990. I wish we could say that Day of the Dead received similar treatment. 

Rating: 4.5 out of 5. 

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Night of the Reviews: Night of the Living Dead (1990)

Hello everyone, welcome back to Night of the Reviews. I had a day or two to decide on what would be the next film to cover. I mean I could easily go and talk about Diary of the Dead. But at this time, it didn't feel right to just jump into it yet. So I decided to start tackling the remakes.

When the original Night of the Living Dead was released, it was released without a copyright. This put the title fully into the realm of public domain. This allowed anyone the chance to use the title if they wished. It also meant that the original crew wasn't seeing all of the revenue from the film that they had hoped for. After 1985, George was seeing a lot of success from his 'of the Dead' films. Night was a cult classic. Dawn had proved that George wasn't a one trick pony with his stories. And Day definitely delivered on the natural evolution of how the fight for survival against the dead would go. 

At the time, there were some people that were wondering how it would go to remake Night of the Living Dead. George had agreed that it would be a good way of getting some of the money they would have gotten from the original film. However, George was quick to say that he would not direct it. He had directed the original and that was enough for him. He was ready to hand it off to Tom Savini. 

Now I had grown up watching this more than I had the original. So as great as the original is, this was my Night of the Living Dead. It for the most part follows the original story. But it updates things to well 90s modern day. But the strongest part of the film for me is the fact that Romero got to have Barbara survive and be more active in the story. For the most part, it's a very Ripley-ish Barbara and for me that wasn't a bad thing. Honestly most of the small changes were for the better. The cast of this film was also something that made it pretty damn special like the cast of the '68 film did. I mean we have Tony Todd in his first starring horror role as Ben. This interpretation was a bit in the vein of the original but for me it feels elevated. This isn't Tony Todd doing a Duane Jones impression. He is able to make the role his own. And for me, this was my Ben growing up. Patricia Talllman delivers an incredible performance as Barbara. She is able to stand toe to toe with Tony Todd's Ben as well as Tom Towles's Harry. She is someone that will not go down without a fight. And for the most part, she is the voice of reason. It's just the others have an issue seeing her viewpoint because they are so set that they are right. I mean if they had listened to Barbara - chances are it'd be a whole different ending for them. 

Now this film does have its gore. It's not surprising as ya know, it's a Savini project. Savini was able to take the ideas of the walking dead from the original and bring them into a more modern time. They are more decaying. There is definitely a lot more variety to them as well. I mean at one point, we see a corpse that is probably a few hours old walking to reveal its scars from being prepared by the mortician. This was a pretty incredible reveal.

Overall, Night of the Living Dead 1990 still stands as one of my favorites. I have grown to love the original film, but for me this one works better. 

Rating: 4.25 out of 5. 

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Night of the Reviews: Land of the Dead

     Welcome back to Night of the Reviews. After the last installment, we have now covered the original three Romero films. There are some that have dubbed them as Romero's Holy Trinity of his Zombie saga. After Day of the Dead's success, Romero took some time and made some other horror films. During this time, we also saw a remake of Night of the Living Dead directed by Tom Savini. It was a solid film and will be covered a little later in this retrospective, so stay tuned for that. And then the zombie genre started making a resurgence with 28 Days Later, the first Resident Evil, and the Zack Snyder Dawn of the Dead. 

    Romero had seen that the genre was coming back. He had started brewing an idea for a fourth installment for his series. He had started the script and seeing different studios. One of the studios that was seen was Fox. Fox had wanted the film to be originally titled Night of the Living Dead. Romero questioned that as he had the name Dead Reckoning in mind. Funny thing is that Fox was looking to own the rights to the Night of the Living Dead franchise. Thankfully Universal Pictures would be the ones to get Romero and his fourth entry. Universal was quick to suggest calling it Land of the Dead instead of Dead Reckoning. 

    By this point, I had seen a lot of the zombie films that were being released. I had enjoyed a lot of them. Yes, even some of the lesser ones that may not have aged properly. When I had heard that Romero was coming out with Land, I had only seen the original Night of the Living Dead and the Savini Night. I had tried watching the original Dawn of the Dead but at that time it just never clicked. I was excited about it. I had tried to go see it at the theater. But I never realized just how dumb the release was for this. It was like a limited release instead of a wide release. So my local theater never received it. It was absolutely dumb. The first day it was released on dvd, I went and picked it up. I was ready for it. I had a bit of high expectations for it. 

  In a world where zombies form the majority of the population, the remaining humans build a feudal society away from the undead. Ruthless Paul Kaufman rules and protects this microcosm but enforces painful class distinctions. Second-in-command Cholo DeMora attempts to lead a secret rebellion against Kaufman's tyranny, but when the zombies begin to evolve, the survivors must discover a way to protect themselves from a zombie hoard that can learn and adapt. 

    This is a very basic approximation of the film story. There's also Riley, who wishes to find a way to get out of the city. He wants to be on his own and be his own person. Riley's only friend is Charlie. Charlie may seem a bit off. However, he is awesome as he can hold his own and has Riley's back. It's a very great pairing and feels like a callback to Of Mice and Men with George and Lennie. But Riley has to stop Cholo to gain his freedom. Riley enlists the help of Slack to aid him and Charlie in this mission. 

    In this rewatch of Land, it's interesting how there's three different sides to the story. It feels very much like the world in Day of the Dead. That's very evident as our three characters feel like natural evolution and callbacks to our characters in Day of the Dead. Riley feels like Sarah, Cholo feels like the mad scientist, and then Kaufman is very much mad like Rhodes. When I had originally watched the film, I loved it. It was nice seeing Romero return to the genre he helped create. It honestly still does. 

    The film definitely feels bigger than Day of the Dead. It's also interesting seeing how Romero was able to finally utilize the ideas he had for the original Day of the Dead script in this. So for this, it feels like Day and Land are the two sides of that original script. There is a fair bit of action in the film. However for me, the biggest thing was seeing Romero getting to show more of the evolution of the zombies. This is the film that began to open things up even more. I mean our main zombie, Big Daddy was a gas station worker originally. He is able to find a way to communicate with the other zombies. It's a bit simple but effective. He also is the first zombie that is able to use a gun. He ends up using an AR-15 (if I remember right) to put a zombie head out of its misery. It is interesting seeing how they overcome their love of fireworks to stay on track. 

    Honestly, Land of the Dead doesn't feel like a cash grab in. It feels like a natural fourth installment. It does have some elements that may feel a little familiar. The opening feels like a callback to Day's opening. The ending is definitely fashioned very much after Dawn of the Dead's with the onslaught of zombies getting what they wanted. The cast in this film is great. Robert Joy is one of the biggest standouts for me. His performance as Charlie is fantastic. He knows that he can chew the scenery a bit. But he steals a lot of his scenes. I wanted to see more of Charlie. Simon Baker is solid as Riley. He doesn't feel like a ruff and tuff man. He feels like a real person. Plus the interactions between Riley and Charlie is just so good. It's a great friendship. Asia Argento was someone I hadn't seen much of before this. I hadn't realized that she was the daughter of Dario. She does a good job in her performance as Slack. It honestly feels a bit like Catwoman from Batman, especially with the interactions between Slack and Riley. John Leguizamo and Dennis Hopper are also fantastic. They chew the scenery so much as Cholo and Kaufman. There was a time or two where I honestly began rolling my eyes. Eugene Clark also steals the show with his performance as Big Daddy. He is so expressive and emotive. It's a beautiful evolution of Bub from Day. And then we have one of our largest ties to the previous three films with Tom Savini appearing as a Zombie Biker. This is a really cool continuity moment as it is literally the same character from Dawn of the Dead. It would have been cool to see more of these type of moments. But it's a nice callback for fans. 

    There is definitely gore in this film. It doesn't disappoint. The only version I had seen of this film was the Unrated Directors Cut. I did look up to see what was added to it. After knowing that there were moments with Big Daddy and the zombies missing from the theatrical cut, I can't imagine what that would be like. This is very much their film as the humans. 

    Overall, Land of the Dead is a fantastic entry in the Romero saga. It holds up pretty well for me. Yeah, sometimes the action may feel a little generic. Same goes for the gore. But for me, it's the smaller beats with the zombies and interactions between Riley and Charlie that make the film for me. It's honestly one of my favorite installments. I definitely recommend it. 

Rating: 4.5 out of 5. 

Previous Installments of Night of the Reviews

Part 1: Night of the Living Dead

Part 2: Dawn of the Dead

Part 3: Day of the Dead

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Night of the Reviews: Day of the Dead

 

    

   Welcome back everyone to Night of the Reviews. I hope so far you have enjoyed my thoughts on Night and Dawn of Romero's Dead saga. Whose ready to talk about Day of the Dead? 

    By this point in time, Night of the Living Dead was continuing to be heralded as a classic. Dawn of the Dead was released to much success as well. Everyone seemed to be on board of the Romero train. The way he tackled his sequels was a very cool way to approach things. It allowed us to see a wider scale of what was going on with society and the zombie apocalypse. It also gave us a different set of characters. I mean it would have been very difficult to find any way to save any of Night's characters as all of them perished at the end of that film. The interesting thing was that we see Peter and Francine survived the end of Dawn. Unfortunately, Romero was not able to bring those characters back for Day of the Dead due to copyright issues. For me, I don't know if I would have been happy if we would have seen them return. It would have been nice but unneeded. It would have also taken away from the anthology approach that these films were going from Night to Dawn. I also have to applaud that Romero didn't rush things for Day of the Dead. He was able to secure a three picture deal from a studio. But he wanted to find a right story and to take some time with other films.

    Day of the Dead tells a smaller personal story than Dawn. It's a very different world than when we last seen. The zombies have overrun the world and outnumber the humans. A group of survivors live in an underground bunker with a military presence. Scientists and Military come to clashing over determining what to do about the zombies: educate, eliminate, or escape. Everyone in this movie deliver amazing performances. Lori Cardille delivers a strong performance as Sarah. This honestly feels like a prototype in a way of what Barbara would become in the Savini version of Night of the Living Dead. Joseph Pilato absolutely kills it as Rhodes. He is our villain and brilliantly makes us hate him as the military leader. Richard Liberty gets to give us his best creepy doctor as the scientist that makes the story come to a head. Honestly without him, the movie wouldn't move forward. He is the catalyst of why the story goes absolutely bonkers. And he does it all in the name of science. And then there's the big standout for the zombies with Sherman Howard's portrayal of Bub. This is such a fantastic performance that many would try to emulate later on. 

    That's one of the brilliant things of Day of the Dead. It's a story ultimately about three sects of humanity coming to a head. We have our typical survivors with Sarah, Miguel, Bill, and John. These are all characters that feel very much like what we had seen in Night and Dawn. Rhodes is the leader of the military. He doesn't want to accept the role. It was just unfortunately something that had passed down to him. And the responsibility of all it all, it just drives him absolutely mad. There's honestly no way that Rhodes could not have gone any other way. And then we have the scientists represented in Logan, who is trying to find a way of rationalizing everything. But through the way he's handling things, it's just driving him further into madness. Especially as it becomes evident that he's utilizing Rhodes' soldiers to further his experiments with the zombie, Bub. And then in the background of all this, we have our zombies doing what zombies do.

    When compared to Dawn, I love Day of the Dead so much more. It is very well paced. The interactions between the three groups is fantastic. The really interesting addition for me was seeing the evolution of the zombie lore with Bub. It's interesting seeing that there is more going on with them. They are not necessarily mindless after all. They just are a bit more simple than humanity. It continues to push the idea that they are us and we are them that Romero is a bit known for. I also love the descent that Miguel and Rhodes both go into. It establishes that there are high stakes in this world and everyone at any moment could have this happen to them. 

    The effects in this film are also extremely top notch. They definitely have evolved since Dawn. I mean look at the zombies in that film and compare them to this one. It's in a way like night and day. They seem a bit more further along as well in their process. They look more dried out like jerky. It's super brilliant. And yes when the gore is on screen, it's there in spades. 

    Oh yeah, when I was researching this film I found out something pretty cool. Originally written, George had some elements that seemed a bit overbudget. It was expanding more on how the rest of society would be. And apparently it was elements that would later be reused and fleshed out for Land of the Dead. That's something that is super cool to hear. It took George at least three different rewrites to make Day into what it is known as today. Fun facts and the more you know. 

    In the end, Day of the Dawn is a great entry in this series. I definitely recommend it. 

Rating: 4.25 out of 5. 

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Night of the Reviews: Dawn of the Dead: The Argento Cut

 Welcome back to Night of the Reviews. In the previous installment, we talked about the Romero's classic - Night of the Living Dead. It was a film that birthed the genre. However, Romero had a bit of a tough time over the next few years. One of the biggest issues was the copyright mishap. As it has been discussed over the years, the original Night of the Living Dead failed to have a copyright on the title. This left Romero and his team unable to make money from the film. The money they would have received instead went to the Producers. It's a big reason why there are so many different reboots and remakes of that original film - it's in the public domain. If you see a movie and there's a film showing on a tv somewhere in it, chances are it'll be Night of the Living Dead. Romero continued going on to make other films. His fans though were shocked that it'd take so long to have him return to the genre that he started. His reasoning was that he didn't want to be sterotyped as a horror director. 

In 1978, Romero released a sequel to Night of the Living Dead. Dawn of the Dead was an interesting approach for the director and writer. It brought a more anthological approach to the world of the Living Dead. Gone were the characters and setting in the original film. This time, it was a much larger look at what a zombie apocalypse could have on society. The scale of everything was a bit bigger. Hell, the effects present in the film were jaw-dropping. But Romero was still able to bring great characters to life in his story. 

The story of Dawn of the Dead is a very simple one. That's the wonderful thing about it as was for Night before it. It basically boils down to two personnel (Francine and Stephen) from a TV station and two policemen (Roger and Peter) set off in a helicopter to find a safe place to hide out. Their search leads them to a shopping mall where they manage to find a place that, while not zombie-free, is quite secure. 

What a better place to have a story in an apocalypse than a mall. It makes a lot of sense as you'd have a lot of access to everything you could probably need. The characters in this film are just as strong as the characters from Night. Stephen is someone that is a bit headstrong. He strongly believes that he's doing the right thing in the very beginning by getting Francine to safety. He's also incredibly cautious about who to trust especially when meeting Roger and Peter. He's trying his hardest to be the knight in shining armor for Francine. Francine feels a bit like Barbara from Night. However over the course of the film, she really comes into her own. She is able to show that she's her own person. This is honestly greatly depicted during a scene when she rejects Stephen's attempt at a proposal. I get it's the end of the world, but is it really necessary to propose Stephen? To me, it feels like Stephen's trying his best to try to find some sort of way to control some element of what the world has become. Roger and Peter have two great introductions in the film. They were apart of a SWAT team that was going through an apartment building - which was filled with zombies. They were able to showcase their great weapon skills during this sequence. Plus Peter is also pretty headstrong as he quickly puts Stephen in his place after Stephen's failed attempt at taking out a zombie. Roger seems like a pretty good guy. He's Peter's right hand man. They both are on the same page and seem to understand how to work together as a team. 

There are lots of messages hidden within the film. Well not exactly hidden, but are covered. Some of them could be considered a bit dated. But looking at everything Romero wanted to discuss, it's all relevant still to today. Yeah, the topic of abortion has changed greatly from when the film was initially released. But it's still an important topic today. The biggest topic of discussion that arises from this film is consumerism. At first, all of the characters become lost in it. They are all caught up in the moment of having to have it all. Roger and Stephen are the biggest examples as they literally lose themselves in their material possessions. Everything has a value. To the point of even money having a false semblance of value in this new world. Thankfully, Peter and Francine both are able to shake the lure of this. 

This whole thing is still so relevant that it's a bit sickening. I mean think about it. During the early stages of COVID-19, what is one thing that people were protesting? The malls being closed. They just wished so much that could be able to go back to their leisurely activities. Not because it would be a way of helping the economy. But because they wanted to get back to a 'normal life'. It's honestly not much different. 

The zombies in this film are definitely different than in Night. In Night, it was hard to gather exactly what the zombies look like. Mostly because that film was in black and white. Tom Savini worked on this film for the effects and it definitely shows. The only thing that Savini has come out and said over the years is that he wished he hadn't made the zombies a grey color. Due to this film being in color, it causes the zombies to be a little blue at times. This is especially evident in the Argento Cut. The gore is also a big sign that this is a Savini Effects film. When the zombies bite something, they don't just bite something. They take chunks out with the proper blood spurting. It greatly helps brings Romero's disastrous zombie apocalyptic nightmare to life. 

Now the only version of Dawn of the Dead that I own is The Argento Cut. When I began to research this film, I learned that there were three different cuts for this film. That's a lot of different ways to enjoy the film. It also allows a lot of flexibility to the viewer in terms of what they may be interested in. There is the original theatrical cut that runs a solid 127 minutes - this is the version that has been released throughout the years. There was also the Extended Cut that brought the film to 139 minutes. This added some more character beats to scenes to help flesh things out. Some people could say that it's not bad to have more of the world that they enjoy. Now the 139 minute isn't Romero's preferred version - that distinction belongs to the theatrical. 

Because Dawn of the Dead was a joint Italian Production, Argento had helped co-finance the film alongside his brother Claudio and producer Alfredo Cuomo. Their big idea for helping finance the film was to have the international distribution rights. This led to Romero and Argento separately editing the film. The Argento Cut featured mostly score by the band Goblin. This Argneto Cut is kind of a cliff-notes version of Romero's original film. It's much faster paced. However, it removes some of the heavy dialogue and comedy to focus more on the horror and the action. 

I have tried watching Romero's original theatrical cut. I understand why some people will prefer it. For me, I tend to gravitate more towards The Argento Cut. It feels more in tone with Night and the subsequent Day. It's the version I would recommend for the awesome Goblin soundtrack. 

Rating: 4 out of 5. 

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