DAY OF THE DEAD (2008)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
Before anyone questions my positive rating of the remake of a George
Romero zombie spectacle, let me clarify my view on zombies. I love
Romero's early "Dead" series, including "Night of the Living Dead,"
the granddaddy of all zombie films and the scariest. I also enjoyed
Zac Snyder's fast-paced and quite scary remake of "Dawn of the Dead,"
which means that, yes, I do find zombies running after your brains
quite scary and nightmarish. The slow, snail pace that early zombies
carried on, meaning walking and not running, is still frightening.
Having said all that, this alleged remake of Romero's "Day of the
Dead" is a better film all around, tighter and scarier and filled with
a doomsday scenario that will seem dated to some but is no less
relevant. Sacrilege, I know, but I was never a big fan of Romero's
"Day of the Dead."
The movie begins with a mysterious flu-like virus (not the H1N1 type,
I am afraid) that causes the military to quarantine the town where it
has started. Yeah, it is a flu alright, the kind that kills you and
then turns you into a zombie with truly ravaged, bubbly skin! Mena
Sevauri may as well be called Meana Sevauri as a soldier who runs over
her zombiefied mother without caring in the slightest! Ving Rhames
appears briefly, sadly, as a soldier, I think, who becomes zombiefied
(and does not do a reprise of the character he played in "Dawn of the
Dead," probably because he was killed in the end credits). That leaves
us with the host of "America's Got Talent," Nick Cannon, as a tough
soldier who is eager to kill all the zombies as if they were playing a
video game! Eventually, this all leads to a military base and a silo
that echoes Romero's original. And I forgot to mention the unlikable
radio host who is holed up in his control room, smoking his life away
and babbling about how the government covers up such quarantines.
"Day of the Dead" has less than memorable characters overall, though I
like Cannon and Sevauri who are appealing enough on screen that they
won't make you gag. There is also the vegetarian soldier that becomes
a zombie and Sevauri tries to protect him because he is a "good"
zombie. Ick! But this movie doesn't get mired with the talkiness of
Romero's film that featured characters I cared far less about than in
this film. There are occasional pauses before the zombies get revved
up and start attacking. It is a rollicking, sweat-inducing, intensely
gory ride of a movie, much like its remake counterpart, "Dawn of the
Dead." On that level, check it out. It won't resonate like Romero's
films but this film can stand on its own for modern apocalyptic
fervor.
