Dawn Of The Dead (2004): Zombie Movie Or Not?
Where do we draw the line on what is and what is not a zombie movie? We just can’t decide on our own, so every Monday we’ll post a new movie to be debated by, you, our readers and ask the question: Zombie Movie Or Not? Every Sunday we’ll post our findings and possibly strike that movie off our Zombie Movie List. The week should give you enough time to rent the movie if need be or you desire.
What every reader must keep in mind is that there are two basic types of zombie that every zombie movie based off of – the Voodoo Zombie and the Romero Zombie. The Voodoo Zombie, while not always raised by Voodoo necessarily, is basically a person, either undead or entranced, that is controlled by a person or entity for the purpose of completing tasks, often killing. Romero Zombies are basically mindless, flesh-eating undead whose bite will turn victims into zombies. Now, not all movies adhere to all of these rules, but if the basics are there, you got a zombie movie.
This weeks debate is over Zack Snyder’s 2004 Remake of Dawn Of The Dead Starring Sarah Polley and Ving Rhames.
IS: It’s a remake of a of one of the original trilogy zombie movies. It has an updated feel (i.e. running zombies) but that just adds to the suspense.
IS NOT: Running zombies? The dead didn’t get up and run, just the ones that were bitten. Another case of infection movie aping zombie movie.
Now it’s up to you, reader. What do you think? Dawn Of The Dead (2004): Zombie Movie Or Not?
Comments(18)
zombies don’t run.
the human body works in a way that by runningm lacic acid is released which breaks down muscles; in the living human the lactic acid fuels regrowth of muscles which creates muscle growth. but in the undead… let;s say they could get one good sprint shortly after being ressurected, as soon as they are done running they would physically be incapable of running.
that being said, unless these are some sort of demonic entity like the fulci zombies in the gates of hell/city of the living dead they should not be running. this is allegedly a remake of the romero movie by the same name, but with the running zombies and the severe deviation from Romeros script, this is not a remake of dawn of the dead, this is just an excuse to take the zombie canon and make it scarier for the average american teenager. kids these days need their zombies to run, that’s why i hate kids. haha
as said in the zombie survival guide, the undead are unable to perform tasks they would have been incapable of doing in life. so a superman zombie could fly, but average bub zombie is incapable of flight. so, yeah, they could run while they were alive, but in death they would be incapable of it because the rules of the body would still apply.
i am sure right now someone is planning a followup to this saying that there would be no way for the lactic acid to be distrubuted in the body because there would be no blood flow. you are correct there would be no blood flow… until the zed started running forcing manual pumping in the heart which would release the lactic acid which would stop the running… creating a shambling ghoul after 20-40 steps. 0WN3D! so running zombies are not only physically impossible, they only exist for the purpose of ripping off a romero script and selling it en masse to teenybopper dumb american kids who can’t figure out why zombies could not run.
so, i will finalize this by saying NO this is NOT A ZOMBIE MOVIE!
and if you think zombies run, you are wrong.
of course this is a zombie movie just because they run dosn’t mean that they are not zombies this is mear weeks after the inital infection they still may be able to muster enough energy to run. i think other than the running all the same zombie rules apply distroy the brain, don’t get bitten you know the good ones. and you very in depth with the way you think but you realize that we are discussing walking dead people. JUST SAYING
yeah yeah, i love when people discuss running zombies and when i discuss the actual physical anatomy behind running and when i explain how running zombies are impossible they have to throw in the old “zombies aren’t real card”. in that case don’t discuss them.
who knows ax man. it just seems that weeks into an outbreak running would be impossible.
Definitely a zombie movie.
Why do we have to have all these “rules” anyways? It scared me, gave me zombie nightmares. ’nuff said.
It’s a remake of a classic zombie movie, therefore, it is a zombie movie. ‘Nuff said.
This is such a zombie movie.
The zombies/ghouls/what-have-you are dead. They may run, but they’re dead all the same. They’re driven to eat human flesh, or at least to kill humans by biting. Bites transmit the condition. They have no reasoning power. They don’t stop trying to kill you until you destroy the brain. Also, the movie is called “Dawn of the Dead.” They’re zombies.
Side note: It’s true that principles of biochemistry would prevent a corpse from running. It’s also true that the same principles would prevent a corpse from walking or even shambling. Electrical impulses alone wouldn’t be sufficient to get your zombie moving for long – despite Galvani’s success with frog legs, eventually the nerves and muscles would reach electrochemical equilibrium and would stop twitching. Unless you like your zombies possessed by demons or black magic (and I don’t), you’ve got to assume some radical changes to the biochemistry. Who’s to say these changes couldn’t make your walking corpse run?
In the sense that a “Romero Zombie” is a re-animated corpse that craves living flesh, the 2004 Dawn remake does meet the necessary criteria. What Romero accomplished with all of his “Dead” films was to use the shambling mindless hordes as a mirror of what mass humanity resembles, while simultaneously providing an imminent threat to his central characters. Their actions and reactions revealed much of our collective human nature and amplified the best and worst that mankind can become, especially under less than ideal circumstances.
Romero has never disclosed the cause of his Undead Revival, which somehow made it even more frightening, and allowed a supernatural element to enter the equation without any hint of actual voodoo or witchcraft. “When there’s no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the earth.” The bible (whether you possess faith or not, it is a historical record as well) tells of the dead leaving their graves and walking about Jerusalem on the day that Jesus was crucified, and also prophesies that this will happen again when Jesus returns. Now, there weren’t any sandal-wearing zombies chomping first century Roman and Hebrew brains, but the whole supernatural experience, and it’s parallels to the Romero zombie mythology, and even the ultimate tag-line: “…no more room in Hell…” turn a Romero zombie movie into an incarnation of a Sunday-School bible story gone horribly wrong, scaring us to the depths of our memory, maybe even our souls.
Hollywood is too darn logical for it’s own good these days. Hence the artistic license taken in the 2004 remake which treated the dead returning to life as something so trivial as a rampant “infection” – Romero knew better…
Oh – and zombies can’t run – but whoever says there is no such thing as a zombie is also correct – so, no prize for either of you.
MMCC
I believe this is a zombie movie. No doubt about it.
i don’t even believe in this movie. as soon as i saw the zombies running… well, i used to drink a lot, and this movie made me go on a week long bender until i forogot why i started to watch it. a year or two ago i was unlucky enough to see it again.
yes, it was a remake of a classic movie. but i was under the opinion that remakes follow the original script.
why were there like 19 survivors in the mall?
why the zombie baby?
why stylish bus?
why the gunshop across the street?
why didn’t they do anything that they did in the original dawn of the dead?
because this is not a good remake of a classic zomb ie movie. it is a peice of shit made using a classic name to sucker people in to watching it, with heightened scares geared towards young americans who would not get pissed that they used a classic name and made a shitty movie.
at least romero made money off it.
as i said before, i don’t think this is a zombie movie, because i don’y believe that this movie actually happened.
just repeat after me, “i don’t believe in you, i don’t believe in you, i don’t believe in you…” make sure you click your heels while you do that.
pretty soon the movie will fade from your mind. haha
as far as zombies not existing. check for the SENTIENT drug/virus disclosure. american chemical weapons experiment information was leaked.
here, this seals the deal…
[img]http://a975.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/101/l_fb481486ab50c0d9237057e97dd3a456.jpg[/img]
damnit… this odesn’t work… http://a975.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/101/l_fb481486ab50c0d9237057e97dd3a456.jpg
I meant to post this yesterday, but had some sort of compu-snafu issue and I didn’t get back til now. So, back to yesterday…
I know it sounds old hat, Badhammer, but if you’re going to go off about the technical aspects of how zombies can’t run, yet over look the technical aspects of how it would be impossible for the dead to get up and move at all, you just look like a hypocrite.This is a zombie movie, because it has zombies in it, that rise from the dead, crave human flesh, kill the living by biting them and make zombies of the living by biting them.
Yes, this is a zombie movie, however implausible that the dead could run, let alone walk or move or just not be dead.
look, i’m not even going to respond to that other than by being here i like zombies enough to think out the chance of them being possible. but it would be physically impossible for them to run. i just put the scientific logic behind it, but come on.
whatever dude.
So, is Return Of The Living Dead not a zombie movie because the zombies run?
Badhammer: I understand that you don’t like the movie and that you think it wasn’t well done, but that doesn’t make it something other than a zombie movie. It may be a bad zombie movie (in your opinion) but it’s still a zombie movie.
in return of the living dead, it is said that the romero movies were based on fact and lied. so for the zombies to run there it makes sense. but in the awful “remake” the romero rules should apply.
This is an awful self-serving explanation, Badhammer. What does Romero have to do with anything? The argument isn’t about whether the movie was faithful to Romero’s vision, it’s about whether it is or isn’t a zombie movie. If the zombies are dead, then they can’t run, that’s your defining point, your touchstone of whether or not it’s a zombie movie. Now you flip-flop because your point doesn’t work on ROTLD, because that is an established ZOMBIE MOVIE. You need to understand the difference between you not liking a film and you not considering it a zombie movie. I understand that you hate the movie, I respect you for that no matter how much I disagree, but you need to concede this one point. It’s a zombie movie that you fuckin’ hate.
This is definitely a zombie movie and one of my favorite ones. Not my favorite, but one of my top like 3. Just because they run doesn’t mean they aren’t zombies. Badhammer, I think your just an idiot who likes to argue and doesn’t know good zombie movies when he sees them. I am a zombie movie nut and that was without a doubt a zombie movie. I watched this movie Zombieland with my husband and it was by far one of the dumbest, but I’m sure you liked it. There was nothing to it really even involving zombies. It was crap. If you want to talk about a crap zombie movie, that is your movie. I recommend Dawn of the Dead (2004).