Product Description

Packed with more blood, more gore, and more bone-chilling, jaw-dropping thrills, Dawn of the Dead Unrated Director's Cut is the version too terrifying to be shown in theaters! Starring Mekhi Phifer, Ving Rhames and Sarah Polley in an edgy, electrifying thrill-ride.

When a mysterious virus turns people into mindless, flesh-eating zombies, a handful of survivors wage a desperate, last-stand battle to stay alive…and human.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4588 in DVD
• Brand: Universal
• Released on: 2004-10-26
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Color, Digital Sound, Director's Cut, Dolby, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 101 minutes

Amazon.com
Are you ready to get down with the sickness? Movie logic dictates that you shouldn't remake a classic, but Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead defies that logic and comes up a winner. You could argue that George A. Romero's 1978 original was sacred ground for horror buffs, but it was a low-budget classic, and Snyder's action-packed upgrade benefits from the same manic pacing that energized Romero's continuing zombie saga. Romero's indictment of mega-mall commercialism is lost (it's arguably outmoded anyway), so Snyder and screenwriter James Gunn compensate with the same setting--in this case, a Milwaukee shopping mall under siege by cannibalistic zombies in the wake of a devastating viral outbreak--a well-chosen cast (led by Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber, and Mekhi Phifer), some outrageously morbid humor, and a no-frills plot that keeps tension high and blood splattering by the bucketful. Horror buffs will catch plenty of tributes to Romero's film (including cameos by three of its cast members, including gore-makeup wizard Tom Savini), and shocking images are abundant enough to qualify this Dawn as an excellent zombie-flick double-feature with 28 Days Later, its de facto British counterpart. --Jeff Shannon

DVD features
Many had their doubts, but in all honesty the Dawn of the Dead unrated director's cut DVD is everything a horror/zombie fan could ever hope for. Yes, the film is not Romero's and fans of the original were set to dismiss the film as a cheap way to cash in on a classic. However, Zack Snyder's Dawn is not simply a remake, but a retelling of George's brilliant vision. The DVD begins with Zack Snyder giving a cool and laidback introduction to this unrated version. He openly admits it is more gory, has more character development, and is a little longer, but it is his preferred version, the one the MPAA wouldn't allow to be released with an R rating. The commentary on this DVD is so much fun. It features a sharp, cool dialogue between the first-time movie director and producer Eric Newman; interestingly, it was recorded before the theatrical version of the film opened. There is nothing like listening to ambitious, funny, excited filmmakers enthusiastically discuss every facet of the filmmaking experience.

Though it has no full-on "making of" documentaries, the DVD includes a nice suite of extras geared towards giving the viewer more background information on the zombie apocalypse. There is 15 minutes of home video footage documenting "Andy's"' final days fighting off the zombies from his gun shop. Special Report: Zombie Invasion is a very cool 20-minute collage of news coverage giving governmental and scientific updates of the zombie crisis from across the country. The three unrated documentaries all showcase the special effects team and their fearless leader, David LeRoy Anderson. They focus on how to explode heads, the most memorable zombie kills, and the zombie makeup process. It's definitely not for the squeamish, but will be fascinating for those who dare to take a look. The strangest thing about this DVD is the almost non-mention of George Romero and his Dead films. In fact, if you missed the credit "Based on a screenplay by George Romero," you may never know it was his vision that laid the foundation. Is this a legal issue? Who knows, but it is definitely a little odd. However, this should not hold genre fans back from seeing this film. You will not be disappointed because this DVD and the film rock. --Rob Bracco

From The New Yorker
Some may have forgotten, and others may never have experienced, the hilarious shocks that George Romero, Sam Raimi, and their fellow horror-meisters offered audiences a decade or two ago. The audacity of films like "Evil Dead 2" and the original "Dawn of the Dead" surprised audiences with surreal images of graphic, unnatural violence. In this remake of Romero's zombiefest, the director Zack Snyder brings back the cringe-inducing gore of yore as his flesh-eating zombies attack a Wisconsin mall in search of fresh meat (Sarah Polley and Ving Rhames among a cast of tasty others). The story hacks away most of the original film's satirical subtext of a consumer society gone wild, but it has retained much of the suspenseful action sequences and the fabulously disgusting makeup effects. The movie may be as mindless as a swarm of the undead, but it's fun in its splatter-filled way. -Bruce Diones
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Ode to Dawn of the Dead -- This one and the Old One
George A. Romero discovered a universal truth: Zombies rock. What's not to love? Shambling, animated corpses with a taste for living flesh? Desperate survivors with trigger happy fingers decapitating said zombies with rusty machetes or well-aimed head shots? Zombies piling up like chords of wood? And the screaming!

It's like Christmas at the organ donor shop.

Romero's original "Dawn of the Dead" made in 1978 is a lot of things: horrifying, taboo-shattering, gory, and disturbing. It's also horror camp at its finest - skewering the mass consumer culture of the United States in our most shallow of decades: the 1970s.

Romero has a gleefully good time with his pack of survivors holed up in an indoor shopping mall. The slow-moving zombies that bang into the display cases or stumble up the escalators aren't so far removed from normal everyday mall shoppers - at least according to Romero.

Why do the zombies congregate at the mall? "Some kind of instinct. Memory, of what they used to do. This was an important place in their lives," one of the characters informs us.

Yeah, even dead we like buying stuff at the mall.

But one thing the Romero film is not? Scary.

That's one reason why we're also fans of the much maligned 2004 remake by director Zack Snyder. That's a sacrilege in many quarters, but for pure fright - Snyder tops Romero. That's the truth. Romero's low-budget wonder is a classic - no doubt. It can be uncomfortable to watch, but there is more dark humor than actual chills. Romero focused his film on his wicked wit: satire instead of terror.

Snyder isn't interested in delivering a sardonic message. He wants to scare you. And damn it if he doesn't. His zombies - like the times we live in - are fast. There's no shambling here - but straight out sprinting.

The gem of Snyder's movie is the opening 10 minutes. It may be the most frightening sequence of any horror movie made over the last 20 years. It has a disjointed, sour flavor as if the orange juice you drink every morning has been spiked with cyanide.

Sarah Polley plays a nurse named Ana. She's at the end of a difficult shift at the hospital. All she wants to do is go home. Traveling home over washed out streets in a bland suburban tract, she arrives home for "date night" with her husband. They make love in their messy, little bed in their messy, little house.

Then it all goes to hell.

The little girl next door wonders in and lo and behold the lower half of her face has been chewed off. She creeps into the bedroom and Ana's husband jumps up concerned. But before he can react, she takes a bite of flesh out of his neck.

Ana locks the little girl out of the bedroom and then has a grueling life and death struggle as her husband dies and then reanimates as a zombie. It's bone rattling violence and by the time Ana gets into her car - her neighborhood, her world is in chaos.

It's absolutely chilling.

While the overall Snyder's film doesn't quite live up to the original (and the characters make some ridiculous decisions - especially at the end), Snyder delivers a zombie movie that belongs on the list of greatest undead flicks ever made - with Romero's original and the superb "28 Days Later."

The two movies follow the same premise - but are very different movies. That's why you can enjoy them both: turn to Romero for the horrifying satire (you can often overlook the rather awkward acting) and then lean on Snyder for some in-your-face terror (and for using Johnny Cash's "Man Comes Around" as an opening number).

Either way -- it's a great two for one.

Like undead literate blather? Then plod on over to Dark Party Review!

Great addition to the Dead films!!!
As a fan of the original Dawn of the dead; I feel that the director and writer did a great job in staying true to the original. The entire idea of zombies that feed on human flesh is an excellent way to stir up apocalyptic thoughts. After all it is as Romero himself says, "One generation rising up to devour the previous one." In the end we just can not escape evolution. This was modernized quite well, and I think that the new "fast zombies" bring true meaning to the word horror! I can still remember my reaction to this version the first time I watched it. I was quite shocked at some of the upgrades from the original. Anyone who loves zombie flicks will love this!

Dawn of the Dead
This film was the worst piece of schlock that I have seen since 28 days/weeks later. The simple fact that a true classic was taken and ruined was a disgrace. The acting was weak the zombies were ridiculous. The direction and production sucked. The writing was weak. James Gunn is a hack and so is Zack Snyder. The fact that they had the gall to talk garbage about the original version of the movie that they were remaking show how low class they are. I will admit that the special effects were passable, but there was a bit to much CGI for my taste. I loved the original this film was a retched abortion of celluoid.Remakes show that Hollywood can't think of anything new and have to go with things that people have already proven to work. The few new horror directors who choose to go their own way and create a new idea get sent direct to DVD. That is what should have been done with this piece of garbage. If you're comming down off of a heroin bender then by all means buy and watch this film to your hearts content. If you want to watch a true classic, buy the original.