MasterChugs Theater: ‘Day of the Dead(2008)’

Posted on May 23, 2008
Filed Under MasterChugs Theater, Zombies | |

With the success of the Dawn of the Dead remake it was only a matter of time before the other Romero zombie flicks were remade. Early out of the gate is Steve Miner’s adaptation of the military zombie allegory Day of the Dead, a movie that can at best be described as comical. Alas, if only we could say that this movie was at its best. Hit the jump if you’re a masochist.

A few years ago, Zack Snyder shocked dead head’s the world over by releasing a new version of Dawn of the Dead that was not only watchable, but actually quite good … at least, for the first or second initial viewings (but that’s a discussion for another review). Its success came from the fact that what he did was essentially just give fans more Dawn of the Dead. Well, that, or the fact that the world was given notice of Richard Cheese. I’m willing to argue for the latter. Once lightning struck, the powers that be decided remaking Day was the next logical step. However, this isn’t a sequel to the new Dawn, and other than some character names, it bears absolutely no resemblance to the original Day. What we have here is a flesh-tearing monstrosity all its own. Let’s rehash the story.

A viral outbreak in a small Colorado town has led the military to enforce quarantine. Corporal Sarah Cross (played surprisingly enough by Mena Suvari) attempts to manage both her military duties, as well as her familial ones, having a mother who is showing flu-like symptoms. Sarah and her brother Trevor decide to take their mother to the hospital for treatment. Once there, the many similarly afflicted townsfolk begin to turn into zombies, tearing apart anyone in their paths. Along the way, we follow Salazar (played by Nick Cannon in his Nick Cannonest role yet), Bud (the vegan soldier) and Captain Rhodes (Ving “Will Act for Food” Rhames, taking “selling out” to new depths) as they endeavor to contain the coughs and the sniffles.

The new Day of the Dead is a fast zombie movie, that makes it it’s mission to out-run the the corpses in Zack Snyder’s Dawn remake, and out-crazy the non-zombies from the 28 Days movies. The living impaired in this one have much more in common with the vampires from 30 Days of Night: they scream, they gurgle, they leap, they rip heads and gobble, they’re the “new and empowered ” zombie of the 21st century. In this new Day of the Dead, they don’t have time to slowly mob you, they want brains, and they want them NOW! They multi-task, they can open doors, they can shoot guns, and (to my dismay) can even defy gravity crawling on the ceiling. In fact, the zombies in this Day of the Dead don’t even have time in their busy schedules to die: With a CSI style microscopic illustration of multiplying Z-viruses, they go from living to gurgling flesh eater in the time it takes to say “I don’t feel so good” and sneeze blood a few times.

Partly because it was obviously shot on HD-video, and partly because of Miner’s visual style, the movie looks like television (hardly surprising then that it’s been shunted straight-to-DVD). Hideously garish opening credits pixelate as they move down the screen (cheap opening credit design is always a good sign as to whether a movie will be good or bad).

Missing from this remake is the relevant allegory that George Romero placed into the original. While mixing the military and zombies isn’t particularly subtle, Romero managed to do so with insight and some impact. This remake has absolutely no subtext, playing as a straightforward zombie film, which just happens to feature members of the military. Any intentional meaning was clearly lost in translation.

It’s also a shame that the writing and character motivations are so ineptly handled. Characters often stand around with blank expressions saying “what’s happening?”, when realistically they’d be running for their lives. Conflict arises between characters without motivation or rationale, seeming to happen only for the purpose of filling an otherwise empty scene. This is in addition to a vegetarian zombie and zombies that conveniently disintegrate with fire.

Despite being woefully miscast (think “Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist” miscast), Mena Suvari actually does a good job with the material, conveying strength well on screen and doing a stand out job with acting scared. Sadly, the rest of the cast really doesn’t bode well, in particular Nick Cannon, who is not only bad in this film, but actively aggravating to watch throughout.

As a remake to a classic horror flick, Day of the Dead is a complete abomination. Taken on its own merit, the film is a horrible cheesy zombie flick that could never have succeeded on a small level with zombie fans everywhere. As it is, this film will never make back its 18 million dollar budget and I’m pretty sure there are some execs somewhere kicking themselves in their own asses for hiring the guy that directed Soul Man to make a zombie flick. Final Synopsis: This movie sucks as a remake. As a remake to Day of the Dead it gets a 1. Taken on its own merits it still is less than good and receives a 1.5. If you love the original Day of the Dead, stay away from this film… if you like crappy, Sci-Fi Pictures Originals zombie flicks, it may be worth a rent-but it depends on how awful you like your zombie movies. Everyone else should probably just ignore this. It’s got TEH AIDS.

This is not how you do a zombie movie.

Written by Chris "Chugs" Taylor