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The original Day of the Dead was the third entry in George Romero's original trilogy of zombie films and was regarded, at the time, as being the worst film in the series. Which is unfortunate, as it does the film a great disservice. Despite having a fairly limited budget, at least compared to his original vision, Romero did his best and came up with a pretty good movie. Granted, it may not have been as good as the previous entries in the series, but it's still enjoyable enough to watch. It's also a million times better than the horrible, tedious dross that is Day of the Dead 2008.
This new Day of the Dead is supposedly a remake of Romero's original Day of the Dead, although it has virtually nothing in common with the original. Nor is it even a sequel to the Dawn of the Dead remake, which was pretty good. In fact, the only real connection to the original Day of the Dead is that both movies contain a character called Captain Rhodes. In this movie, he's played by Ving Rhames, who also appeared in Dawn of the Dead, only in that film he played a completely unrelated character. Confused? I don't blame you. I suspect that the only reason Rhames was cast in this film was so that the producers could slap his name on the DVD box (yes, we're in straight to video territory here). He certainly looks thoroughly bored with the whole proceedings, and in fact has only about ten minutes of screen time before he's killed off. Which leaves Mena Suvari to take center stage as the film's heroine. Yeah, her career's certainly gone downhill since American Beauty.
Even if you ignore the fact that the movie's trading off George Romero's hard work and treat it as a horror movie in its own right, it's still a real mess. The standard of acting is average at best, with a special mention going to Ian McNeice's performance. Who? Well, you may not know his name, but you almost certainly know his face. He's a fairly 'large' British actor, to put it delicately who crops up in a lot of films. And what role is he playing in this film? An American disk jockey - and the accent he puts on is shockingly poor. So poor in fact that whenever he's talking you'll find yourself grimacing at the sheer awfulness of it. And the actual characters themselves are hardly memorable, either. You've got Hard-Nosed Sergeant, Initially Reluctant But Ultimately Heroic Lead Character, Wisecracking Black Guy, and a whole host of other by-the-book characters. All of whom find themselves having to escape from a small town that's become infested by zombies.
I say 'zombies' but in actual fact, the creatures in this film seem to be just generic movie monsters. I have no problem with zombies running, but for some bizarre reason these zombies also have the power to run along the ceiling like spiders and leap around like frogs. They've supposedly been created due to the release of some kind of virus, which apparently manages to infect the bulk of the town's citizens, without any direct contact, which doesn't affect the main cast. Which is disappointing, as seeing them chow down on the living would be infinitely more interesting than what they actually do - roam around a bunch of random locations for no apparent reason. In fact, there's no reason to watch this film either. It's not scary, the main characters are so deadly dull you don't care if they live or die, and it's certainly a patch on the film it was supposedly based on. Do yourself a favour and check out one of George Romero's original trilogy and leave this sub-par rubbish on the shelf.
This new Day of the Dead is supposedly a remake of Romero's original Day of the Dead, although it has virtually nothing in common with the original. Nor is it even a sequel to the Dawn of the Dead remake, which was pretty good. In fact, the only real connection to the original Day of the Dead is that both movies contain a character called Captain Rhodes. In this movie, he's played by Ving Rhames, who also appeared in Dawn of the Dead, only in that film he played a completely unrelated character. Confused? I don't blame you. I suspect that the only reason Rhames was cast in this film was so that the producers could slap his name on the DVD box (yes, we're in straight to video territory here). He certainly looks thoroughly bored with the whole proceedings, and in fact has only about ten minutes of screen time before he's killed off. Which leaves Mena Suvari to take center stage as the film's heroine. Yeah, her career's certainly gone downhill since American Beauty.
Even if you ignore the fact that the movie's trading off George Romero's hard work and treat it as a horror movie in its own right, it's still a real mess. The standard of acting is average at best, with a special mention going to Ian McNeice's performance. Who? Well, you may not know his name, but you almost certainly know his face. He's a fairly 'large' British actor, to put it delicately who crops up in a lot of films. And what role is he playing in this film? An American disk jockey - and the accent he puts on is shockingly poor. So poor in fact that whenever he's talking you'll find yourself grimacing at the sheer awfulness of it. And the actual characters themselves are hardly memorable, either. You've got Hard-Nosed Sergeant, Initially Reluctant But Ultimately Heroic Lead Character, Wisecracking Black Guy, and a whole host of other by-the-book characters. All of whom find themselves having to escape from a small town that's become infested by zombies.
I say 'zombies' but in actual fact, the creatures in this film seem to be just generic movie monsters. I have no problem with zombies running, but for some bizarre reason these zombies also have the power to run along the ceiling like spiders and leap around like frogs. They've supposedly been created due to the release of some kind of virus, which apparently manages to infect the bulk of the town's citizens, without any direct contact, which doesn't affect the main cast. Which is disappointing, as seeing them chow down on the living would be infinitely more interesting than what they actually do - roam around a bunch of random locations for no apparent reason. In fact, there's no reason to watch this film either. It's not scary, the main characters are so deadly dull you don't care if they live or die, and it's certainly a patch on the film it was supposedly based on. Do yourself a favour and check out one of George Romero's original trilogy and leave this sub-par rubbish on the shelf.
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The original Day of the Dead was the third entry in George Romero's original trilogy of zombie films and was regarded, at the time, as being the worst film in the series. Which is unfortunate, as it does the film a great disservice. Despite having a fairly limited budget, at least compared to his original vision, Romero did his best and came up with a pretty good movie. Granted, it may not have been as good as the previous entries in the series, but it's still enjoyable enough to watch. It's also a million times better than the horrible, tedious dross that is Day of the Dead 2008.
This new Day of the Dead is supposedly a remake of Romero's original Day of the Dead, although it has virtually nothing in common with the original. Nor is it even a sequel to the Dawn of the Dead remake, which was pretty good. In fact, the only real connection to the original Day of the Dead is that both movies contain a character called Captain Rhodes. In this movie, he's played by Ving Rhames, who also appeared in Dawn of the Dead, only in that film he played a completely unrelated character. Confused? I don't blame you. I suspect that the only reason Rhames was cast in this film was so that the producers could slap his name on the DVD box (yes, we're in straight to video territory here). He certainly looks thoroughly bored with the whole proceedings, and in fact has only about ten minutes of screen time before he's killed off. Which leaves Mena Suvari to take center stage as the film's heroine. Yeah, her career's certainly gone downhill since American Beauty.
Even if you ignore the fact that the movie's trading off George Romero's hard work and treat it as a horror movie in its own right, it's still a real mess. The standard of acting is average at best, with a special mention going to Ian McNeice's performance. Who? Well, you may not know his name, but you almost certainly know his face. He's a fairly 'large' British actor, to put it delicately who crops up in a lot of films. And what role is he playing in this film? An American disk jockey - and the accent he puts on is shockingly poor. So poor in fact that whenever he's talking you'll find yourself grimacing at the sheer awfulness of it. And the actual characters themselves are hardly memorable, either. You've got Hard-Nosed Sergeant, Initially Reluctant But Ultimately Heroic Lead Character, Wisecracking Black Guy, and a whole host of other by-the-book characters. All of whom find themselves having to escape from a small town that's become infested by zombies.
I say 'zombies' but in actual fact, the creatures in this film seem to be just generic movie monsters. I have no problem with zombies running, but for some bizarre reason these zombies also have the power to run along the ceiling like spiders and leap around like frogs. They've supposedly been created due to the release of some kind of virus, which apparently manages to infect the bulk of the town's citizens, without any direct contact, which doesn't affect the main cast. Which is disappointing, as seeing them chow down on the living would be infinitely more interesting than what they actually do - roam around a bunch of random locations for no apparent reason. In fact, there's no reason to watch this film either. It's not scary, the main characters are so deadly dull you don't care if they live or die, and it's certainly a patch on the film it was supposedly based on. Do yourself a favour and check out one of George Romero's original trilogy and leave this sub-par rubbish on the shelf.
This new Day of the Dead is supposedly a remake of Romero's original Day of the Dead, although it has virtually nothing in common with the original. Nor is it even a sequel to the Dawn of the Dead remake, which was pretty good. In fact, the only real connection to the original Day of the Dead is that both movies contain a character called Captain Rhodes. In this movie, he's played by Ving Rhames, who also appeared in Dawn of the Dead, only in that film he played a completely unrelated character. Confused? I don't blame you. I suspect that the only reason Rhames was cast in this film was so that the producers could slap his name on the DVD box (yes, we're in straight to video territory here). He certainly looks thoroughly bored with the whole proceedings, and in fact has only about ten minutes of screen time before he's killed off. Which leaves Mena Suvari to take center stage as the film's heroine. Yeah, her career's certainly gone downhill since American Beauty.
Even if you ignore the fact that the movie's trading off George Romero's hard work and treat it as a horror movie in its own right, it's still a real mess. The standard of acting is average at best, with a special mention going to Ian McNeice's performance. Who? Well, you may not know his name, but you almost certainly know his face. He's a fairly 'large' British actor, to put it delicately who crops up in a lot of films. And what role is he playing in this film? An American disk jockey - and the accent he puts on is shockingly poor. So poor in fact that whenever he's talking you'll find yourself grimacing at the sheer awfulness of it. And the actual characters themselves are hardly memorable, either. You've got Hard-Nosed Sergeant, Initially Reluctant But Ultimately Heroic Lead Character, Wisecracking Black Guy, and a whole host of other by-the-book characters. All of whom find themselves having to escape from a small town that's become infested by zombies.
I say 'zombies' but in actual fact, the creatures in this film seem to be just generic movie monsters. I have no problem with zombies running, but for some bizarre reason these zombies also have the power to run along the ceiling like spiders and leap around like frogs. They've supposedly been created due to the release of some kind of virus, which apparently manages to infect the bulk of the town's citizens, without any direct contact, which doesn't affect the main cast. Which is disappointing, as seeing them chow down on the living would be infinitely more interesting than what they actually do - roam around a bunch of random locations for no apparent reason. In fact, there's no reason to watch this film either. It's not scary, the main characters are so deadly dull you don't care if they live or die, and it's certainly a patch on the film it was supposedly based on. Do yourself a favour and check out one of George Romero's original trilogy and leave this sub-par rubbish on the shelf.