Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Along with 2003's "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", Zack Snyder's reimagining of George A. Romero's 1978 classic "Dawn of the Dead" can safely be lumped into two categories: 1) trend-setting early 2000s remakes, and 2) remakes which are inferior to the originals. Not that the latter designation is any kind of condemnation of what "Chainsaw" revamper Nispel and "Dawn" director achieve with their movies, since they were both adapting genre classics. And if studios continue to insist on do-overs of titles that don't really need them, the best we can really hope for is that they work half as well as this version of "Dawn of the Dead" does.

Like the original, Snyder's movie is set in a shopping mall, in which a ragtag band of survivors hunker down and ammo up as hordes of zombies gather outside, only this time those zombies can run and Snyder doesn't have to work within the same budgetary and technical constraints that Romero did. The social commentary of the original is barely there but "Dawn of the Dead" delivers the goods in terms of violence, action and entertainment. Whether we're watching the survivors pick off celebrity lookalike zombies with their sniper rifles, seeing people get their throats torn out or marvelling at the effects work (hello, creepy undead baby!), the audience is always having a great time with this one. It's kinda mindless, for sure, and has some hints of the obnoxious instincts that hamper Snyder's lesser works, but it's still a damn good movie. Great cast, too.