Dawn of the Dead
2004



Director: Zack Snyder

Producer(s): Marc Abraham, Eric Newman, Richard Rubinstein

Writer: James Gunn (Screenplay)

Plot: Dawn of the Dead is a 2004 horror film remake of George A. Romero's 1978 horror film of the same name. The remake and original both depict a handful of human survivors living in a shopping mall surrounded by swarms of zombies, but the details differ significantly. Directed by Zack Snyder, the film was released by Universal Studios and features cameos from original cast members Ken Foree, Scott Reiniger and Tom Savini. It was released in North America on March 19, 2004, and then in the United Kingdom on March 26, 2004.

The story concerns a deadly virus which turns infected humans into flesh-craving ghouls. While the source and exact nature of this plague remain unexplained, it is confirmed that it is spread when a victim is bitten by an infected person.

Ana, a nurse, finishes a long shift at her Milwaukee County hospital and returns to her peaceful suburban home and her waiting husband, Louis. They make love and go to sleep, missing warnings trickling through the local media. The next morning they are awoken by their zombified neighbor, a little girl, who bites Louis in the throat. Ana locks the zombie out of the room, but despite her frantic efforts, Louis dies, immediately reanimates as a zombie, and attacks, chasing her into the bathroom. Ana escapes out the window and flees from her now chaos-torn neighborhood in her car, before a failed hijacking attempt sends her crashing into a tree. The opening credits roll, showing the worldwide collapse of human civilization. Ana meets Kenneth, a grim police sergeant traveling to meet his brother at Fort Pastor, the local military base. With the route to the base blocked by zombies, they join three others - jack-of-all-trades Michael, petty criminal Andre and his pregnant wife Luda - and break into the nearby Crossroads Shopping Mall. A scuffle with a zombified mall security guard results in Luda getting a minor bite-wound. They then meet three living security guards (C.J., Bart and Terry), and give up their weapons in exchange for refuge. After the group secures the mall, they head up to the mall's roof to dispose of bodies and paint SOS signs. While there, they "meet" another survivor, Andy, who is stranded alone in his gun store, across the mall's zombie-infested parking lot.

The next morning, a delivery truck arrives at the mall, carrying the driver Norma, jerkish Steve, working man Tucker, elderly Glen, trampy Monica, bitten Frank and his teen daughter Nicole, and a critically-injured obese woman. The newcomers bring word that Fort Pastor has been overrun by zombies and no help is coming. The obese woman dies, reanimates and is killed by Ana, who thrusts a metal fireplace poker into her left eye. Frank soon succumbs to his own bites, and his reanimated body is destroyed by Kenneth.

Though the mall provides many material distractions, and Ana edges into a romance with Michael, the undead surround the refuge in ever-increasing numbers. Finally the mall’s power goes out and Michael, C.J., Bart and Kenneth go down to the underground parking garage to turn on the emergency generator. After they meet an unaffected dog, a zombie swarm kills Bart and traps the others in the generator compartment, where they douse the zombies with gasoline and set them ablaze with C.J.'s cigarette lighter. Meanwhile, Andre, sunk totally into denial, has the heavily-pregnant and heavily-infected Luda tied to a bed in the mall's children's store. Even as Luda gives birth, she dies and reanimates. Norma checks on the couple, discovering the zombie-Luda and the demented Andre clutching a small bundle. Norma shoots Luda in the head, causing Andre to snap completely. They exchange more gunfire, mortally wounding each other. Ana arrives onscene and opens the bundle to reveal a zombie baby. She draws her revolver and a single shot rings through the mall.

At an impromptu memorial, Kenneth says anything is better than "sitting around waiting to die". The remaining mall-dwellers thus plot to escape to the local marina, and from there travel out on Steve's boat to an island in Lake Michigan. They begin to reinforce two shuttle buses from the parking garage in preparation for the trip, welding on a snowplow, metal bars, and barbed wire, boarding up the windows with shelving and chains, and drilling holes and cutting slits through the sides for the deployment of weapons. Several chainsaws and propane tanks are also loaded onboard. Meanwhile, Andy is starving, and will not have the strength to join the escape (and bring along much-needed ammunition for the group's guns), so the survivors in the mall strap a pack of food on "Chips", the dog from the basement, and lower him the ground. Unfortunately, while Chips makes it safely to the gun-shop, a zombie gets in as well and badly injures Andy. Nicole, distraught over Chips, takes the delivery truck and barges her way into the gun store, where a now-zombified Andy traps her in a storage closet.

Kenneth, Michael, C.J., Terry and Tucker gather what weapons they have and go into the sewers, while Steve is assigned guard-duty on their exit door. They reach the gun store, kill Andy, rescue Nicole, and stock up on weapons and ammunition. A detonated propane tank is used to clear a path back to the sewers, but the zombies pursue them, Tucker is killed and (thanks to Steve's negligence) mall security is breached. The remaining survivors flee in the buses, using another propane tank to clear the parking lot. When Glen moves to take out a hitchhiking zombie with a chainsaw, a sudden swerve sends the weapon slashing into Monica's shoulder instead. The resulting splatter of blood covers the bus's windshield, causing driver Kenneth to lose control and crash. Glen and Monica are killed, while Steve flees the toppled bus and is attacked by the hitchhiking zombie.

The others scramble for the second bus, meeting zombie-Steve en route. Ana shoots him in the head, then must linger long enough to get the boat keys off his corpse, allowing more zombies to catch up with them. After another fight, they narrowly escape and arrive at the marina, crashing the bus at the dock. Swarmed by pursuing zombies, C.J. detonates a final propane tank with a road flare, blowing up the bus, the zombies, and himself. The remainder of the group gets on the boat, except for Michael: he was bitten while Ana got the keys. Ana pleads with him to come, but he refuses. With no time to argue, the boat sets sail with Terry, Ana, Kenneth, Nicole, and Chips; Ana watches unflinchingly as Michael draws his pistol, places it under his chin, and a final gunshot rings out over the water. The end-credits roll, interspersed with video footage taken by Terry, using a camera from the boat. Following a grim voyage where water, fuel and food supplies all run low, the remaining survivors succeed in reaching an island, only to find a new swarm of zombies waiting for them. As the swarm attacks and the survivors attempt to retreat to the boat, the camera falls to the ground and blacks out, leaving the survivors' ultimate fate unknown.

Buy Dawn of the Dead at Amazon.com
Check out the official Dawn of the Dead website