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Dawn of the Dead is a loose, "reimagined" remake of George A. Romero's 1978 horror film of the same name. The remake and original both depict a handful of human survivors living in a shopping mall surrounded by swarms of zombies, but the details differ significantly. The film was released in 2004 by Universal Studios and features cameos from original cast members Ken Foree, Scott Reiniger and Tom Savini. Tagline:
PlotSpoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Ana, a nurse, finishes a long shift at her Milwaukee County hospital and returns home to her husband, Louis. They make love and go to sleep, missing warnings trickling through the local media. The next morning they are awoken by a zombiefied neighbor girl, who bites Louis. He dies, immediately reanimates, and attacks Ana, trapping her in their bathroom. Ana escapes through the window and flees the chaos-torn suburbs in her car before a failed hijacking attempt sends her crashing into a tree. The opening credits roll, showing the worldwide collapse of human civilization. Ana meets Kenneth, a grim police sergeant. They join three others - jack-of-all-trades Michael, petty criminal Andre and his pregnant wife Luda - and break into a local shopping mall. A scuffle with a zombified mall security guard results in Luda getting a minor bite-wound. They then meet three living security guards (C.J., Bart and Terry), and give up their weapons in exchange for refuge. After the group secures the mall, they "meet" another survivor, Andy, who is stranded alone in his gun store, across the mall's zombie-infested parking lot. A delivery truck arrives, carrying the driver Norma, jerkish Steve, working man Tucker, elderly Glen, trampy Monica, Frank and his teen daughter Nicole, and a critically-injured obese woman. The newcomers bring word that no help is coming from the outside. The obese woman dies, reanimates and is killed by Ana. Frank soon succumbs to his own bites, and his reanimated body is destroyed by Kenneth.
At an inpromptu memorial, Kenneth says anything is better than "sitting around waiting to die". The remaining mall-dwellers thus plot to escape to the local marina, and from there travel out on Steve's boat to an island in Lake Michigan. They begin to reinforce two shuttle buses from the parking garage in preparation for the trip, adding a snowplow, bars, barbed wire, and holes and slits for shooting. Meanwhile, Andy is rapidly running out of food, so the group straps a pack on "Chips", the dog from the basement, and lowers him the ground. Unfortunately, while Chips makes it to the gun-shop, a zombie gets in as well and bites Andy. Nicole, distraught over Chips, takes the delivery truck and barges her way into the gun store, where a now-zombified Andy traps her in a closet. Kenneth, Michael, C.J., Terry and Tucker gather what weapons they have and go into the sewers. They reach the gun store, kill Andy, rescue Nicole, and gather weapons and ammunition. A detonated propane tank is used to clear a path back to the sewers, but the zombies follow them, Tucker is killed and mall security is breached. The remaining survivors flee in the buses, using another propane tank to clear the parking lot. When Glen moves to take out a hitchhiking zombie with a chainsaw, a sudden swerve sends the chainsaw cutting into Monica instead. The resulting splatter of blood causes driver Ken to crash. Glen and Monica die, while Steve flees and is attacked by the hitchhiking zombie. The others scramble for the second bus, meeting zombie-Steve en route. Ana shoots him, then must linger long enough to get the boat keys off his corpse, allowing more zombies to catch up with them. After another fight, they narrowly escape and arrive at the marina, crashing the bus at the dock. Swarmed by pursuing zombies, C.J. sacrifices himself, blowing up the bus, the zombies, and himself. The remainder of the group gets on the boat, except for Michael; he was bitten while Ana got the keys. The boat sets sail, and Ana watches unflinchingly as he draws his pistol, places it under his chin, and a final gunshot rings out over the water. The end-credits roll, interspaced with video footage taken by Terry, using a camera from the boat. Following a grim voyage, the remaining humans succeed in reaching an island, only to find a new swarm of zombies waiting for them. As the swarm attacks, the camera falls to the ground and goes dark, leaving the fate of the survivors unknown. Cast
The anonymous bloated female zombie who Ana destroys was played by actor Ermes Blarasin, who also appears as a zombie in the 2005 film Land of the Dead. The production used real amputees to portray zombies that were missing limbs.[1] ProductionImage:DawnofthedeadTitle.jpg Title Shot of Dawn of The Dead (2004) James Gunn is only partially responsible for the screenplay, despite receiving solo writing credit. After he left the project to concentrate on Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, both Michael Tolkin and Scott Frank were brought in for rewrites. In a commentary track on the Ultimate Edition DVD for the original Dawn, producer Richard P. Rubenstein explained that Tolkin further developed the characters, while Frank provided some of the bigger action sequences. The mall scenes of the film as well as the rooftop scenes were shot in the Thornhill Square Shopping Centre in Thornhill, Ontario and the rest of the scenes were shot in the Aileen-Willowbrook Neighborhood of Thornhill, Ontario. The set for Ana and Louis's bedroom was constructed in a backroom of the mall.[1] The mall was defunct, which is the reason the production used it; the movie crew completely renovated the structure, and stocked it with fictitious stores after Starbucks Coffee and numerous other corporations refused to let their names be used.[1] (Two exceptions to this are Roots and Panasonic.) The mall was demolished shortly after the film was shot. The first half of the film was shot almost entirely in chronological order[1], while the final sequences on the boat and island were shot much later and at a different location (Universal Studios Hollywood) than the rest of the movie, after preview audiences objected to the sudden ending of the original print.[1] MusicThe song that plays over the film's opening credits is "The Man Comes Around" by Johnny Cash. The track has suitably apocalyptic lyrics, contains a mention of Armageddon, numerous Bible references and quotes from the Book of Revelation 6:8. The film also featured both the original version of "Down With The Sickness" by Disturbed and the Lounge music version by Richard Cheese. The muzak playing in the mall when the survivors first arrive is Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy". Comparisons to the originalIn the original film the zombies moved very slowly and were most menacing when they collected in large groups. In the remake however the zombies are fast and agile, and are, on the whole, closer to the quick-moving, psychotically violent victims of the 'Rage' virus in the 2002 British horror film 28 Days Later than the traditional shambling Zombie archetype. Many admirers of the original (as well as Romero himself) protested this change, feeling that it limited the impact of the undead.[2][3] This is somewhat borne out by the fact that the remake has almost no close up shots of zombies that last more than a second or two. Snyder mentions this problem in the commentary track of the remake's DVD, pointing out that they seem too human when the camera lingers upon them for longer. In the original, all 'recently dead' are reanimated by an unidentified source. Zombie bites seem to somehow induce rapid death, and subsequent reanimation. The workings aren't elaborated upon. In the remake, it springs up worldwide overnight, and is definitely bloodborne, relying on zombie bites for transmission. In the original, anyone who dies of any reason returns after an hour or two. In the remake, only those infected return and after a period of less than a minute after death. The original had a smaller cast than the remake, allowing more screen time for each character. Many fans and critics protested the resulting loss of character development.[4] In the original version the story unfolds over several months, indicated by the advancing stages of Fran's pregnancy. In the remake the events transpire within approximately 1 month, as evidenced by the supplemental feature The Lost Tape: Andy's Terrifying Last Days Revealed, located on the DVD. The character Andy owned the gunshop across the street from the mall in the film, and in this bonus feature Andy records a video diary of his ordeal for future reference. He begins recording on May 7, 2004, the day after he first encountered the flesh eaters, and continues to record until his death on June 6. Also included on the DVD was the supplemental "Special Report", a news program detailing the world-wide effects of the zombie epidemic on humanity. (This second feature is the only time in the production when anyone uses the word "zombie".) Three actors from the original film have cameos in the remake, appearing on the TVs the survivors watch: Ken Foree, who played Peter from the original, plays an evangelist who asserts that God is punishing mankind; Scott H. Reiniger, who played Roger in the original, plays an army general telling everyone to stay at home for safety; and Tom Savini, who played the motorcycle gang member Blades in the original, plays the Los Angeles County Sheriff explaining the only way to kill the zombies is to "shoot 'em in the head." Additional references to Romero's original Living Dead movies include: A store in the mall is named Gaylen Ross, the actress that played the female lead in the original Dawn of the Dead. A sign for "Wooley's Diner" can be seen, a nod to the character of "Wooley" in the 1978 version. The character Tucker's name is a reference to Rod Tucker, one of the SWAT team members in the original. A truck from the BP corporation is seen, the same company as in the original. The WGON helicopter from the first film is seen flying into the frame in one sequence. The film's tagline, "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth", is the same one from the first film, and is delivered in both films by actor Ken Foree. The mall-dwellers' ultimate escape plan echoes a similar attempt by a group of ex-policemen at the start of the original Dawn, while the re-make's opening sequences contain at least two references to the original Night of the Living Dead film: a car crashes into a gas station and explodes, and the female lead crashes her car into a tree. ReceptionIn the UK, both this film and Shaun of the Dead were originally scheduled to be released the same week, but due to the similarity in the names of the two films, UIP opted to push back Shaun's release by two weeks. Heavily derided by some fans before its release,[5] on release the film received mixed reactions from both moviegoers and critics. Some felt that the film did not retain the social satire and poignancy of the original.[6] George A. Romero is quoted as saying of the film, "It was better than I expected. [...] The first 15, 20 minutes were terrific, but it sort of lost its reason for being. It was more of a video game. I'm not terrified of things running at me; it's like Space Invaders. There was nothing going on underneath."[7] The film grossed over $59 million at the box office,[8] more than any other zombie film in history.[9]
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