Roberto Giacomelli
•A mysterious epidemic is bringing all the dead back to life, turning them into ferocious killer monsters. A nurse sees her partner die and come back to life before her eyes, and after barely escaping the murderous fury of the monster, while the entire city is in chaos, she meets four survivors (a black policeman, a couple where she is pregnant, and a guy with a friendly look) and together they take refuge in a shopping mall, where they soon encounter the hostility of three guards already taking refuge inside. Soon a truck full of survivors, including several infected, will arrive asking for hospitality, and the living dead will not be long in assaulting their refuge.
Fans of the legendary "Dawn of the Dead" by George A. Romero feared the worst (including me), but this modern take by Zack Snyder turned out to be one of the most beautiful surprises of the 2004 horror cinema year. One of its strengths was the choice not to create a simple remake, but to offer a variation on the theme, and it almost seems like witnessing a story parallel to the 1978 film: the same situation but with completely different characters and story development. After all, it is the same formula that ensured the success of another recent "remake," that of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."
Snyder's film is populated by many more characters compared to its predecessor, including the protagonist nurse played by the excellent Sarah Polley, the all-in-one policeman with a heart of gold played by Ving Rhames, reminiscent of Tarantino, and the sympathetic ex-family man and failed husband brilliantly played by Jake Weber; around them revolve a series of well-characterized characters for being part of the cast of a splatter movie: from the violent mall guard to his younger and more reasonable colleague who falls in love with a fragile girl who has just lost her father, passing through an elderly gentleman with homosexual tendencies and without forgetting the flighty girl who gives herself easily and the bastard of the turn who tries to betray the group. This colorful group of characters flavors a film that abounds in happily splatter scenes that will delight every enthusiast. The zombie makeup is also very well done and consists of three stages that correspond to three parts of the film: at the beginning, the zombies appear simply as injured and bleeding people; in the central part of the film, they present dry injuries and signs of putrefaction; in the final part, they are real monsters with flesh in tatters. Moreover, it must be emphasized that in this film the living dead betray the Romerian prototype of the slow and shuffling zombie, instead giving them quick and aggressive movements (a bit like the infected in Danny Boyle's film "28 Days Later"), which certainly make the figure of the zombie lose its eerie charm, but give the whole story a greater sense of danger and a more accentuated verisimilitude (naturally with the awareness that a completely unrealistic theme is being treated!)
In conclusion, with "Dawn of the Dead," a "mission impossible" has been successfully completed, that is, to present to today's masses an absolute masterpiece of horror cinema without disappointing the fan of the previous film. Naturally, the new "Dawn of the Dead" loses all the symbols and socio-political undertones that the original was loaded with, but it is undoubtedly an excellent entertainment product.
Curiosity. "Dawn of the Dead" pays homage to the characters of Romero's film, entrusting the actors who played them with small cameos; thus, Tom Savini, who in the previous film had taken care of the special effects and had played a motorized thug, can be found in the role of a sheriff who provides a tip on how to eliminate the living dead; Ken Foree, the Peter Washington of Romero's film, who here plays a preacher who pronounces the cult phrase "when there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth"; while Scott Reiniger, the Roger De Marco of "Zombi," appears in the guise of an army colonel.
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