Day of the Dead (2008).

I think the best way to write about this film would be to write as I watch. So, here we go...

• Er, don't remember horny teens starting off the original?! Hey, I know this is only "loosely based" but for christ's sake keep the best bits of the 1985 version! Where's the phenomenal desolate town, the "IS ANYBODY THERE...?", the alligator and the very very slow very very cool jawless zombie? Oh man. This doesn't bode well.
• Ving Rhames! Ahh, suddenly things are looking up.
• "Our child is sick." Cut to pale looking little boy. Where could this possibly be leading?
• False scares are so often really lamely done.
• Jesus, Ian McNeice has got really fat.
• Colorado looks pretty. I'd like to visit it someday.
• Good first instance of gore. Okay, I'm sticking with this.
• That "punk" extra looked like Spike from Buffy.
• I like the premise of freezing in place while the turning happens, that is actually quite creepy and well done. The crappy CGI "showing" the biological side of the turning was pointless and jarring, however.
• Aaaand once turned you are immediately rotting and incredibly fucking agile all of a sudden? Seriously, these things are continually leaping like fleas.
• Right, so fast zombies I don't mind so much - they have their place and are more adrenaline-pumping scary than their slow counterparts. They aren't "canon" but I do have time for them when I'm in the right mood. This said, I have a bit of a growing hatred for the modern zombie that fucking screams and hisses and roars all of the time. That really takes the edge off of the whole undead corpse thing for me. Oh SHUT UP. If you're so rotten that your face is falling off then how have you the ability to yell so loudly? Shhhh!
• The frenetic MTV editing is giving me a headache by 30mins in.
• I wonder if a cough has ever been used as a scare tactic before?
• Obligatory ventilation shaft scene.
• Oh fuck, legless zombie Ving Rhames ******* *** *** ****** *** *** ***! (censored because it's so great I don't want to spoil it). Worth the DVD price alone.
• "I put bleach on it." = LAME.
• How does it work that a character knows to refer to them as "zombies", but doesn't know about only headshots taking them down?
• That blade was way too flimsy and serrated to cut like that.
• The wave of second floor window jumping zombies was pretty cool, I'll admit.
• Dodgy, shit-looking CGI blood spurts.
• One of the younger characters reminds me of a very very poor man's Shia Labeouf.
• He-Man reference, hehe.
• Oh no. No no no no. The Bub equivalent is a pouting, morose, vegetarian zombie called Bud. Who has sexual desires. I... I have no words.
• More dodgy CGI...
• If you were born in America, do you just instinctively know how to fire a gun?
• Claustrophobic and dirty underground bunkers. That's more like it.
• Oh god STOP ROARING.

And then it ended.

The extras on the DVD suck. Don't even bother with the "soundbites" section. It's just the actors uncomfortably answering boring questions, and extremely poorly edited.

I think the above may come across as rather more negative than I actually view this film, hmm. It was definitely watchable and I don't regret buying it. It is silly (wall and ceiling climbing zombies! Er...) and entertaining enough, unfortunately though without ever lurching into the realms of the Dawn remake of genuine scares and tension.

It's Day of the Dead very much in the loosest sense. I don't know why film makers can't just come up with their own titles and strong enough stories, so they didn't need to piggyback the classics and gain instant credibility through their name. I suppose when I put it like that, why would they put the extra work in when it's that easy? I am playing along here, so Im to blame too. Put Romero's name on something, somewhere, and I'm standing in line like a chump, money in hand. Why waste time on decent, original stories when you have a bank of ready-made fans in the wings?
Oh okay, I've stepped down from the soapbox now. I'm hardly saying anything new anyway.

Want a rating for this? Two and a half irrationally exploding zombie heads out of five. It's not so shit that you feel dirty after, but it's not so great that you feel the need to recommend it.

Cool poster though.