CC RANT: DAY OF THE DEAD (2008)

We all knew the Day of the Dead remake was going to be horrible. Dawn was a fluke, we all knew it in our hearts.... and the fact that no one involved with that film was working on this one was a little distressing. Then the planned theatrical release for Day fizzled out and it hit dvd a little while ago with the ridiculous cover on the right that looks more like a Garbage Pail Kids card than anything that happens in the movie. Turns out that our fears were well founded. This movie's a pile, not even worth watching it for free on Netflix like I did. You will get angry.

One thing the Dawn of the Dead remake did fantastically was to throw you right into the shit from the beginning. Think what you will of the film, but there's no way you can deny that the opening scene isn't as close to goddamn perfect as you can get. It's simply one of the best openings to a zombie flick, ever, showcasing all the kind of wanton destruction and chaos that they always wanted but never had the budget for.

Here in Day you know you're in trouble from the beginning, as right from the boring credits sequence you're thrust into an equally boring scene with young teens in an abandoned building attempting to slowdance to pop-punk and exploring the shadowy place while strange noises and "scary" MTV-cuts abound. Meanwhile, Ving Rhames and Mena Suvari (playing a Army Corporal who doesn't like guns. hah!) are nearby, in charge of blocking off a road and fending off angry drivers during a "military exercise".


We go back and forth from the two camps for a bit. What the fuck does one have to do with the other besides being part of the same terrible script? Well Suvari's brother's one of those teens, and they eventually meet up to try to add some backstory to the boring, one note characters. Oh yeah, and the whole town's infected with a flu that gives you nosebleeds before turning you into a zombie. There's the usual zombie chowdown scenes, the usual headshots, even a secret military lab and an experiment gone wrong. There's absolutely nothing you haven't seen done before in a zombie movie, and better. 
 
Then again, it's from the same writer who penned the Final Destination series. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the Final Destination movies (they probably top my list of guilty pleasure movies... especially the second) but no one's watching those for the characters or plot. There is none. You're just watching them to see people get killed in inventive ways.
 
There's really no reason this could be considered a remake, anyway. Besides Ving Rhames' character being named Rhodes, and the concept of a thinking zombie (named Bud instead of Bub) there's nothing else to suggest the director has even seen the original film. The first half of the movie is a stupid slasher flick, the second a stupid action movie. If you think I'm kidding about the slasher film comparison, the first kill of the film involves a sex-hungry teen getting separated from her friends and eaten... off screen. Since when do zombie movies do things off screen?
 
In fact, the zombies don't even appear till 23 minutes into the movie. Most of the beginning seems to be trying to make you wonder about what's going on, in fact. Oh no! Everyone's got a mysterious flu! That nose bleed sure doesn't look good! Mena Suvari's investigating houses with strangely mutilated corpses! What could be happening to this town?
 
I'd like to take this time to direct the filmmakers' attention to the title of the movie. It's called Day of the Dead. WE KNOW IT'S FUCKING ZOMBIES! Christ, did they think buildup was going to work here? Was anyone sitting on the edge of their couch wondering what these poor people were infected with and what was going to happen to them? This is why Dawn got right into it without any nonsense.

It doesn't help that almost every part of Day is completely inept... just look at the casting. Whoever decided Mena Suvari would make a convincing soldier needs to think long and hard about their life. Sorry, but a petite woman's never going to make a convincing badass, unless the girl happens to be Japanese and in a schoolgirl outfit. Drumline's Nick Cannon shows up to help the script set relations between black and white folks back about 40 years.... because we all know black people only talk about their race or why shit is gangsta. "Now that's what I'm talking about!"
 
As for Ving Rhames, well, thankfully he's only in the movie for around 5 minutes. They allow him to bark a few orders and take down a few zombies before being eaten. Oops, spoiler!
 

The worst part is that he gets dragged off screen while bleeding CGI blood from his hand. Not exactly a "CHOKE ON IT!" moment, if you know what I mean. He then comes back as a legless zombie who tries fruitlessly to bite Suvari while barking like a dog.
 
Oh, and you people who hate fast zombies? They've got their running shoes on here. In fact, it's not enough that they run, they actually speed up the film when they're attacking, which makes it look absolutely hysterical... almost exactly like those hideously outdated shots in Nosferatu of Orlock's carraige bustling down the lane. The zombies also scream like crying children that have just seen the wrong end of their father's belt (the non-sexy end). It makes it instantly laughable. Also, you might not know this, but this movie exposes the truth of what happens when zombies get set on fire. Their head explodes and they burn to ashes like a vampire in Blade, natch.


If you're a horror fan you're unfortunately used to characters making stupid decisions, but here it gets worse and worse. Like when one of the characters makes a speech about how one among them is infected (in a scene reminiscent of the blood test scene in The Thing, if every actor was a mongoloid) and then sees his mother outside in the street and runs outside to let her in. I guess he forgot that they took her to the hospital before because she was sick with the zombie flu.

There's also a hysterical scene where our heroes are climbing through air ducts in a hospital when the zombies notice them and start banging on the ducts with mops. They manage to smash through it and Mena Suvari falls down, and they all claw at her like Mexican children scrambling for candy from a broken pinata. I shit you not.



Add in an absolutely ridiculous use of "smart" zombies, some Saw-style quick, jerky edits, more cliches than you can shake your dick at ("Wha-huh! Why'd the lights turn off all of a sudden!" *ZOMBIE ATTACK!*), and you've got a mess of a movie with no redeemable moments.

It's barely better than the unlicensed Day of the Dead 2: Contagium. Avoid this piece of shit.