Dawn Of The Dead: Unrated Director's Cut HD DVD Review

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Title: Dawn Of The Dead: Unrated Director’s Cut

Region: N/A

Genre: Horror

Media: HD DVD

Stars: Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber, and Mekhi Phifer

Writer: James Gunn

Based On A Screenplay By: George A. Romero

Director: Zach Snyder

Feature length: 1 hour and 50 minutes

Extras: Splitting Headaches: Anatomy Of Exploding Heads, Attack Of The Living Dead, Raising The Dead, The Lost Tape: Over 15 Minutes Of Terrifying Footage Revealed, Special Report: Zombie Invasion, Deleted Scenes, Director’s Commentary

Languages: English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround Sound and English and French Language Dolby Digital 5.1 Plus Surround Sound

Subtitles: English Subtitles For The Deaf and Hearing Impaired and French and Spanish Language Subtitles

Packaging: Elite Red HD Case

Chapter Stops: 20

Sound: Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround Sound and Dolby Digital 5.1 Plus Surround Sound

Year of Theatrical Release: 2004/HD DVD Release: 2007

Theatrical Distributor: Universal Pictures

Home Video Distributor: Universal Studios Home Entertainment

MPAA Rating: Not Rated

Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera

It is a given in modern society that like it or not, films are remade over and over again for a new generation. Sometimes it is a character or story that has become a part of the public domain that is reworked every ten or twenty years and other times it is merely the concept that is borrowed with little similarity between the previous version and the new one. Depending on one’s point of view, Hollywood through both the big screen and small has had a lot of success lately with reinventing the old. Big screen films like New Line Cinema’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Paramount’s The Manchurian Candidate are good examples of remakes that stand well on their own merits. On the small screen, Universal and the SCI FI Channel has had success in bringing original miniseries remakes of Battlestar Galactica and Frank Herbert’s Dune to fruition. That is not to say that they are better than their original counterparts, but they beat audience and critical expectations. Sometimes a remake is not fully appreciated at the time of theatrical release, but develops a strong following on home video. John Carpenter’s The Thing is in my opinion one of the best sci-fi horror hybrids ever produced, but back in 1982 audiences were more inclined to see E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial over and over again. Sometimes it is simply a manner of timing.

I remember after seeing the 2004 remake of Dawn Of The Dead on the big screen, a friend of mine in England mused to me about how Hollywood cannibalizes itself for lack of any original ideas. I laughed not so much because I agreed or disagreed with his statement, but because I thought “Now that would be a great idea for a setting. Why not have survivors hold up in a Hollywood studio back lot and then the underlying subtext regarding remakes in general could be explored without sacrificing any action since the characters would have to contend with zombies in makeup literally as well as other hardships.” I still feel there is potential in that idea for some filmmaker to really explore and have fun with though like the “slasher” craze that Scream briefly ignited in the 1990s, I think that in about a year or two, the interest in the zombie subgenre will have begun to wane. Some might argue that it already has.

With the exception of the basic premise, Dawn Of The Dead has little in common with its predecessor. The film does stand well enough alone though as both a horror film and a general homage to Romero’s films that pioneered the genre. For reasons never explained other than the old tagline “When there’s no more room in Hell. The dead will walk the Earth,” a zombie plague sweeps all over the world and within days decimates society. A few human survivors hold up in a shopping mall seeking salvation, but soon enough realize their shopper’s sanctuary will become their tomb if they don’t find a way to escape ravenous hordes of the undead clamoring outside. Like the “infected” in 28 Days Later, these zombies are vicious creatures that have an inhuman ability to run at speeds that makes groups of them nearly impossible to pass. This makes them all the more dangerous since all it takes is one bite to infect the living with disease that reanimates the dead. In many ways the 2004 version of Dawn Of The Dead is a far more bleak film than the original 1978 classic, but it also lacks some of the elements that made Romero’s film so much fun to watch. I think fast zombies are scary, but what was frightening about Romero’s creatures was that they lulled both the characters and the viewers at times into thinking that these lumbering ghouls are no match for a few of the living with some guns. That was their power in a sense because in all of Romero’s “Dead” films, part of the reason why the dead always end up breaking into the living’s stronghold is because of humanity’s inability to band together in the face of a crisis and in general underestimating a zombie is a very dangerous thing to do. Not that recent events in the last few years have not proved the heroism others have had in facing the unknown to save others in the face of great calamity, but as a species we have yet to reconcile our self destructive nature with our altruistic nature and that in many ways is the reason why people behave irrationally at times at least in part.

Cameos from original Dawn Of The Dead stars Ken Foree, Scott H, Reiniger, and Tom Savini are sure to make fans of the original smile at least a little even if they still refuse to give this remake a chance to stand alone. Perhaps it is because I watch movies and write about them for a living and I have seen so many horror films that what is considered gory by contemporary standards does not really bother me, but despite the extra scenes of bloody zombies attacking the living, I do not think there is any image in this film that is any more disturbing or hardcore than the brilliant work Tom Savini produced for both George A. Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead and Day Of The Dead. However I do think that the “Unrated Director’s Cut” of Dawn Of The Dead is better than the theatrical version not because of any extra scenes of carnage, but rather because it restores scenes that help to explain the background of the characters and how certain action in the film took place. For example, in the theatrical version we see a toilet breaking through the glass doors of one of the mall stores allowing our protagonists entrance inside, but I’m sure a few people who saw it on the big screen wondered, “If that’s how they got in, what prevents the zombies from coming in right behind them?” That question is answered in the “Unrated Director’s Cut.” As a whole the “Unrated Director’s Cut” of Dawn Of The Dead is approximately 9 minutes longer than the theatrical version.

The 2004 version of Dawn Of The Dead: Unrated Director’s Cut is encoded using VC-1 on HD DVD with up to 1080p resolution where available and a widescreen (2.35:1) presentation of the film because it preserves the manner in which the film was exhibited theatrically as close as possible for home video users to enjoy. Picture wise this is an outstanding Universal HD DVD release. The colors seem more accurate and natural than the DVD version and none of the grain that was present on the DVD versions is present here. The English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround Soundtrack is also outstanding and helps make this home video presentation of Dawn Of The Dead: Unrated Director’s Cut a slick one.

The English Dolby Digital 5.1 Plus Surround Soundtrack mix is also very strong with a nice discrete use of the multi-channel audio to create a distinct three-dimensional home theater experience. The music and sound effects at times jump out at the listener and intensify the onscreen action as a result and yet there are lulls so that one does not feel overwhelmed by the soundtrack. The music cues come off quite nicely too. A French Language Dolby Digital 5.1 Plus Surround Soundtracks are also encoded onto the dual layered disc along with English Subtitles for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired and French Language Subtitles as options too.

Director Zach Snyder and Producer Eric Newman provide optional feature length audio commentary that is screen specific and insightful. They also provide optional audio comments for a reel of 11 letterboxed deleted scenes (11:29) and Mr. Snyder also provides an optional videotaped Director’s Introduction (1:16) before the start of the film detailing briefly his reasons for the “Unrated Director’s Cut” and the differences therein between the theatrical and unrated versions. Produced exclusively for home video are The Lost Tape: Over 15 Minutes Of Terrifying Footage Revealed, which details the character of Andy, the gun shop owner’s last month of life as it correlates to the events that take place during the film. Special Bulletin: Zombie Invasion! (21:04) is a collection of videotaped news coverage of the first 26 hours of the zombie epidemic complete with a few clips featuring a hapless jackass wrestling a zombie for fun in a basement while his dumb buddies watch, a survivalist demonstrating various “controlled” scenarios of how to survive a zombie attack from multiple directions, and some gory hospital and mortuary footage that expands the horror of the film in a somewhat pseudo gonzo style. One can almost imagine seeing these video bits on YouTube if something as ghastly as this ever happened. The late Richard Biggs is the troubled New Anchorman throughout announcing the news while fellow Babylon 5 alumni Bruce Boxleitner appropriately delivers the voice of the final broadcast by the President of the United States.

There are also three behind-the-scenes featurettes detailing the gory exploding head effects (5:37), dissecting how some of the zombie kills in the film were executed-no pun intended (7:25), and the three stages of zombie makeup developed for the film (7:54). Unfortunately none of the theatrical trailers for the film are included, which is a shame since I thought they were especially well produced. The seamless menus that allow for access to scene navigation without interrupting the film are easy to navigate and work well. Dawn Of The Dead: Unrated Director’s Cut is available on HD DVD now at retailers on and offline courtesy of Universal Studios Home Entertainment.

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