Original Director Hated Zack Snyder's $100M Remake, But Stephen King Thinks It Was Genius
Remake of a horror classic that managed to become a horror classic itself.
Zack Snyder's debut was a remake of the George Romero classic. Dawn of the Dead has been called Snyder's masterpiece.
The cruel world is teeming with bloodthirsty creatures ready to devour people alive. The end of the world has come and the characters are trying to survive while watching their loved ones die.
As early an in this horror the style of the director manifests itself: spectacular slowdowns, close-ups and musical editing.
The dead do not walk, but run furiously, which distinguishes them sharply from the crowd of dull zombies in Romero's movie.
Wild chaos on the verge of parody and trash explodes, and Johnny Cash sings about Armageddon. Even children won't survive this hell and violence is the only way out.
The moviemaker, who directed commercials and music videos before Dawn of the Dead, became a revelation. George Romero himself expressed his disapproval of the movie more than once. He said:
"I sort of thought it lost its reason for being. I know a lot of people really like it very much, Stephen King, for example."
Stephen King in fact gave Snyder's Dawn of the Dead a big thumbs up in his non-fiction book Danse Macabre, where he said that Snyder did his best work with this remake.
"Genius perfected would be Zack Snyder's 2004 Dawn [of the Dead] remake, which begins with one of the best opening sequences of a horror film ever made," the writer also commented.
The original movie and the remake turned out to be very different. Dawn of the Dead 1978 is not just a horror, but a philosophical parable that reflects the problems of modern society.
Romero respects the dead. In Romero's Dawn of the Dead, the zombies come to the mall in search of answers – they are trying to find something important, to gather the remnants of consciousness and to return to their normal way of life.
The remake puts more emphasis on action, and the script has some gaping plot holes that were unimaginable in the original movie.
If we are judging two movies, then Snyder's Dawn of the Dead wins in terms of spectacularity.
The remake will appeal to slasher fans, while connoisseurs of intelligent horror will be more interested in the 1978 movie.
Source: The Telegraph