Remaking the Classic…

So, there is another remake of a Romero zombie film coming out. Well, Dawn of the Dead was a pretty rousing success, so it stands to reason that some filmmakers thought they could do the same with the film Day of the Dead. I was always a fan of the 1985 film Day of the Dead. It can be hokey and slow moving…but so can the original Dawn of the Dead.

The films seem to cause fans to take sides. Fans of Dawn often seem less than impressed with Day, even though many of the problems that plague Day are the same problems that hit Dawn. The thing that made the Dawn remake work is that it punched things up. It found a new approach to the classic. The interesting thing about Day of the Dead was it asked the age old question of “who is the greater monster? Man or the creature he fights?” Set in a military base after the world has been overrun by zombies, the strife and conflict is based on the thin alliance of military men and scientists. They are all on the edge, living underground. To make matters more interesting, there is a scientist trying to domesticate zombies. This leads to one of the first sympathetic zombies I can recall, Bub. The actor who portrays ub manages to engender sympathy without dialog…and as a rotting corpse no less.

So, working within those confines, a good solid, “Dawn of the Dead” styled remake seemed like a good idea. Of course, Zack Snyder (director of the Dawn remake and decent hit 300) has gone onto Watchmen and James Gunn (writer of the Dawn remake) moved on to direct Slither. Which potentially lessens my hope. What lessens the hope that this is any good even more? It never made it to theaters. Now, there have been plenty of decent direct to video films, but judging from the cast, they had their sights set a bit higher.

So, of course it is currently number one in my Netflix queue. I mean, the cover is a mashed up zombie spewing green slime from his mouth.