Dawn of the Dead: Unrated Director's Cut on Blu-ray Disc Review by Brandon A. DuHamel on BigPictureBigSound

Blu-ray Disc and DVD : Blu-ray Disc Reviews

Published: 2008-10-06 - 01:00:00

Dawn of the Dead: Unrated Director's Cut on Blu-ray Disc Review

By Brandon A. DuHamel

The Film

Director Zak Snyder's version of this George A. Romero horror film cannot be described exactly as a remake as much as a re-imagining of the 1978 original. Snyder's film concentrates less on the dialogue and commentary on the age of consumerism and more on the action and suspense. Instead of slow moving zombies, Snyder gives us frenetic, agile hordes of undead flesh eaters ready to spread their condition to every normal human they come upon.

As the movie begins, in a seemingly typical suburb in Wisconsin, a nurse named Ana (Sarah Polley) and her husband are beset upon by their neighbor's daughter, who bites a chunk of flesh from the husband's neck. He instantly transforms into one of the zombies and turns on Ana. She is forced to flee, finding the creatures have overrun the entire neighborhood. This opening sequence of Ana in her car weaving her way through the chaos on the streets is one of the most thrillingly depicted action sequences I have scene in a film in a long time. It quite accurately depicts a sense of desperation in the apocalyptic disarray that occurs during a disaster.

Eventually Ana meets a group of strangers (Ving Rhames, Jake Weber, Mekhi Phifer, Inna Korobkina) and, just as in the original Dawn of the Dead, they all seek sanctuary in the safest place they can find -- a shopping mall (appropriate named the "Crossroads Mall"). From that point on is where the film is centered. The action does slow somewhat, as the group, now joined by the mall security team as well as a few more survivors seeking refuge, wearily feel each other out to learn if they can trust one another. Of course, what would a "zombie movie" be without the requisite encroachments of the undead that manage to find their way in to the group's sanctuary, and, of course, the discovery of those among them who have been infected and are about to turn? Of these elements, there are plenty as the survivors explore the unsettlingly dark and empty shopping mall and come across zombies throughout.

Snyder's direction is moody and suspenseful. The lighting in the Crossroads Mall -- in all its fluorescent artificiality -- heightens the sense of imprisonment while camera angles and edits leave the viewer wondering what's around the next corner, even when one knows it's a wild zombie. The visual effects team and makeup artists are to be commended as well, as the zombies look surprisingly disturbing and the scene near the end of the film as the survivors are driving their vans through a swarm of zombies is haunting. I'm not one who scares easily, so I cannot honestly say that I found this film to be very scary, but that's just me. I know for sure that there are people out there -- I know many of them personally -- who will be scared out of their wits by this film, and that, ultimately, is what good horror is all about.

I'm sure that many people will find fault with this film solely on the basis of it being a remake and completely changing so many things from the original, but looking at it in its own right and judging it as an independent piece of work, the film succeeds on so many levels where many other films of this ilk fail. I for one think it would be shame to discredit this film just because it does not seek to imitate the original in every way. If it did do so, then it would be a pointless exercise and a waste of good film.

The Picture

Just as any good horror film should, Dawn of the Dead exists in a world of shadows and pale light. The transfer could easily have faltered and fallen into a loss of detail and black crush, but instead what we are given is something with superb shadow delineation and impeccable coloration with endless splashes of vermilion blood that really stand out. Chapter 17 as the group runs through the sewers shows the strengths of the black levels and shadow detail as the lighting is extremely dark, yet figures are easily discernible. The 2.35:1 1080p/24 VC-1 transfer also picks up much of the film grain, which is relatively consistent throughout, if a little soft and unnatural-looking, particularly in the few scenes of the brightly lit azure sky.

There are some noticeable specs of dirt and scratches which appear occasionally that would normally be jarring, but in a film with such a "grindhouse" sort of feel to it, it somehow works heighten the mood and style of the film. One wonders if it wasn't actually on purpose? Apart from the smoothed over appearance of the film's grain, which could very well be due to the relatively low bitrate VC-1 encoding which only averaged around 12Mbps by my estimation (dipping as low as ~6Mbps in some spots), the transfer does not display any other compression artifacts of note such as macroblocking and there are no detrimental processing effects to speak of either, making this a very good transfer.

The Sound

Dawn of the Dead's onslaught of explosions, screeching tires, gunshots and other sundry sound effects is handled superbly by a dynamic and aggressively mixed lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack. Bolstered by an aggressive use of the LFE, explosions pound and the zombies' guttural growls are truly antagonizing. The mix alternates between being front heavy and utilizing the surrounds discretely during more action intensive scenes, but there is always a good amount of ambient information in the surround channels that opens up the soundfield. In addition to the lossless English track, there are also dubbed French and Spanish DTS 5.1 mixes available. It goes without saying, that the original language lossless track is the best option sound-wise.

The Extras

The extras on Dawn of the Dead are limited to an audio commentary by director Zak Snyder and producer Eric Newman and Universal's "U-Control" BonusView (Profile 1.1) picture-in-picture commentary by the actors and filmmakers detailing different parts of the production, visual effects and casting. The audio commentary is relatively entertaining to listen to as Snyder and Newman are jovial and obviously inspired by their work, but it is still typical in that the two point out much of the specifics of filming particular scenes, etc.

Final Thoughts

Zak Snyder's re-imagining of this horror is fairly true to the original and works well to bring a good amount of action and just the right amount of gore without going overboard to the screen. Although it does have its lulls, there are a fair amount of suspenseful moments that should please most horror fans. The Blu-ray Disc release comes with a more than competent video transfer and yet another excellent DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack that will test the limits of your home theater system. I recommend this to any fan of the genre without hesitation.

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