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Movie Review: 'Dawn of the Dead'
by Jason Tate
22 March 2004
"Dawn of the Dead," directed by (probable Jew) Zack Snyder, is a remake of George A. Romero's highly successful 1978 zombie-horror classic. This movie actually has a budget (the first was made for just $1 million) and more action in the first ten minutes than the entire original. It begins with our white heroine Ana (Sarah Polley) finishing her shift as a nurse at the hospital and ignoring some warning signs on the TV and radio of impending danger. Like the original, there is no explanation as to what caused the outbreak of undead or how it began, but it comes for her full-force the next morning.
After some jaw-dropping scenes of the zombies overrunning her neighborhood, she escapes in her car only to swerve off the road into a tree, knocking herself out. She is found after the opening credits by noble black police officer Kenneth (Ving Rhames),who brings her along as he looks for safety. Already the movie has lapsed into unrealism: if a Negro armed with a shotgun found a white chick in the woods alone, what's the first thing he would do? Anyone?
Our politically-correct duo soon find other survivors, led by Andre, who's played by everyone's favorite simian, Mekhi Phifer, the "handsome" chimp from "O," which is always a favorite of White Nationalists. (I knew he would unfortunately be in the film, but I practically groaned out loud when I saw a white chick with them - I knew she'd be his woman.) The group heads for a nearby mall which hasn't yet been surrounded by the living dead, where they link up with some stupid white security guards, who are initially hostile to the group, but then "come to their senses" and allow the trustworthy, armed Negroes and their compadres to stay and hole up. Initially I thought Rhames's character would, of course, be the brains behind the group in typical Hollywood fashion, but it turns out to be Michael (Jake Webber) who eventually devises a plan to escape to an island in the lake, using buses in the mall's underground parking garage to get to a nearby marina.
Some great action scenes follow, they make it to the marina, there are some last minute heroics by the white characters (will miracles in Hollywood ever cease?), and our happy heroes sail off into the sunset to safety. (Or do they? Stick around for the end credits.)
The most disgusting scenes of the movie aren't the decomposing zombies, people being eviscerated or heads being blown off. It's having to watch Phifer and his pregnant Russian race-traitor wife holding hands and hugging, or listening to him telling Ving Rhames about how he wants to live to be a good father. Fortunately both he and his Quisling slut are only with us through half of the movie, but not until after she defecates out her mulatto baby, which turns out to be even more of an abomination than usual.
The zombies in this remake are fast-moving and relentless - actually scary and believable as a threat, unlike the original. Throughout the movie there are scenes of people in vehicles being swarmed by zombies, eerily reminiscent of the crashed helicopter being overrun by Somonkeys in "Black Hawk Down," except the zombies are prettier to look at.
With the exception of a few brief scenes of race-mixing, the movie really delivers. There are some scenes of white incompetence, but mostly the characters are killed by their own stupidity, just like in most horror movies. "Dawn of the Dead" is without a doubt the best zombie-horror movie ever made, and it buries "28 Days Later." It was the best movie I've seen in the last year, period. Its effect was so powerful that even after the film, as I was walking across the parking lot here in Boston, I found myself glancing nervously around for approaching undead. Instead, I saw "things" walking along that were just as disgusting - and equally scary.
JASON TATE
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