I was a big horror buff in my teen years and the original DOTD was one of my favorites. Needless to say, from my point of view, this re-envisioning is BETTER than the original.
Reasons?
The original Dead series was a social commentary...it used the horror setting to force the issues into an arena where they could have a tangible presence and an exaggerated display of consequence. So each entry has a specific tilt: Race relations (Night), consumerism (Dawn) and militarism (Day).
Problem is, with movies like that, the issue overwhelms the reality a little bit. A big problem for theorists and dramatists is that the characters have to do dumb things to prolong the story, otherwise, the conflict is resolved in 5 minutes or less. So even though the ORIGINAL Dawn had more wit and cleverness to it, the threat of the zombies wasn't so great. When I watched the original, I kept wondering why the characters didn't pick off the zombies in the lot since the gun store in the mall gave them plenty of ammo? At least the re-make shows that supplies are limited. Romero's zombies make more sense because a combination of rigor mortis and oxygen deprivation would make a zombie a slow, stilted thing. But they're not much of a threat, and you can see the exertion of the cast to make them seem dangerous. The new zombies are the result of a plague, so there is the "excuse" for a violent and mobile monster.
The new zombies are superb, and MUCH better than the original Dead series. Their speed, strength and sheer hostility DEFINITELY make them more terrifying than before. Horror films never really scare me, but this new Dawn with the violent zombies REALLY instilled within me a POWERFUL sense of DREAD and DESPAIR...I could actually feel what it was like to be chased through the streets by these creatures and it disturbed me tremendously.
The story is also much better. Somone posted here that the opening 10 minutes shows just HOW FAST things would fall apart if something like that happened in real life and I appreciate that comment greatly. That is what was missing from the original series: the sense of complete collapse of society and hope to a mysterious threat, and that is what I wish the original would have shown.
FLAWS
The mall is indispensible...the fans would never tolerate its absence and I agree. But consumerism is not as controversial as it was during the birth of the mall era so it seems out of place. The media coverage during the credits, on the other hand, is superb and that would be a better focus for today if purism was not necessary. But maybe that's for the best because era specific commentary can date a movie fast and threaten longevity.
The photography was great, but the mall was almost invisible thanks to the noir lighting; the gore and violence had nothing to stand out against like it did in the daylight sequences. On top of that, everybody is using that grotesque fluorescent green cast (the baby birth scene) in EVERYTHING, so much so that I believe you will be able to recognize a 1990's-ought's film by this the same way orange filter and lens flare date a 70s movie. The Saving Private Ryan flutter effect during the SUPERB escape sequence works fine, but it's being over-used and should really only be used for action scenes like this in only special movies.
So overall, the remake was BETTER than the original in my opinion (which I would normally think of as blasphemy), and despite the dubious nature of the fast zombies, I don't think slow zombies will go away completely...after all, they were here first.
I recommend it and will buy it when it comes out on DVD.
POST-SCRIPT:
Being isolated should enhance the dread, but I really wanted to see beyond the mall and see what other survivors would be doing...this isn't a flaw, but I would like to see this in a Day re-make.
