ZJW's Movie Review of Day of the Dead (2008)

Absolutely Abysmal
ZJW - wrote on 05/04/09

This ‘remake’ of Day of the Dead isn’t the worst zombie film I’ve ever seen. In fact, it’s not ever the worst zombie film with Day of the Dead in the title that I’ve ever seen. No – I’m not referring to George Romero’s original of which this film is rather loosely based but the ill-advised 'official' sequel, Day of the Dead 2: Contagium. Back to the film at hand however… while it’s not the worst zombie film I’ve ever come across, this movie is bad.

The original Day of the Dead followed the events of Dawn of the Dead while this remake stands as its separate story. Of course very little about this film bears much resemblance to Romero’s original beyond the title. An illness starts to spread and a military quarantine is set up around the small town of Leadville, Colorado. It soon becomes evident that everyone, well everyone except the main characters, are ill and begin transforming into “zombies”.

While I agree that 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later are good films I have never considered them zombie films because they aren’t zombies. They have been infected by a virus but have never died before returning from the dead. That is the case here - there aren’t any true zombies in this film which is a crime considering it’s source material. What we have are “fast zombies” that also have the ability to climb on walls/ceilings and jump out of second and third story windows.

The story eventually moves underground into a military bunker as zombies pillage the town. Once there we learn that this outbreak is the result of scientific experiments being conducted by the government. One of our main characters, Bud, gradually becomes a zombie but does not turn on his friends. The characters names and his theoretical “intelligence” are supposed to be a reference to Romero’s original but it makes so little sense that it’s rather pointless.

The film of course ends leaving the possibility for a follow-up but it certainly isn’t desired. I suppose it’s likely that some studio will get the bright idea to remake Land of the Dead someday but they’ll likely start anew, ignoring the events of this film, much as it ignored the events of Dawn. Hopefully they’ll put a lot more thought and effort into it then they did here. I would suggest avoiding this one at all costs – there are many better zombie films to spend your time with.